Help me Cipher. (Using GM atm)

[Torm51]

So I basically always drop my Cipher for a Wizard (CC/debuff specialist) on PoTD because I ALWAYS have trouble with focus generation in the fights that actually threaten my PoTD trial of iron run (Dragon fights)..obviously if the cipher isn't hitting the enemy focus gen suffers.  I do take appropriate talents such as the talent that makes them gen fore focus per hit and the other that lets the start with more focus at the start of a fight.  I have tried a Blunderbuss/pistol build and find the low accuracy of these weapons with  an average accuracy class to really hurt.  Maybe I am doing it wrong.  Maybe its just that Wizard is WAY strong in tough boss fights.  Just if they miss a spell they can always buff and sling another (until they are out of course) but if a cipher misses his CC on a tough boss he/she has to fire on (if no other mobs are around) on a high defense target that is not debuffed (because they missed) and it hurts.  I just have a subpar auto attacker at some point.

 

this is the only real class I struggle with so any tips from you heavy Cipher users would be welcome.

Edited September 28, 2015 by Torm51

[Boeroer]

You're doing it wrong!

 

In fights with dragons use Tactical Meld (+20 ACC) BEFORE combat - so it's for free - then at the beginning of the combat cast borrowed instinct (+20 ACC) for a total of +40 ACC. Then turn on penetrating shot and use a pistol/arquebus/arbalest or a blunderbuss with the carow golan drug. If you can't generate focus with that then I can't help you.

 

I like arbalests a lot but it doesn't really matter. Just make sure it has some punch because of the dragon's high DR.

Edited September 28, 2015 by Boeroer

[Torm51]

I actually have those talents I am probably not microing properly. 

[MadDemiurg]

Well, first of all cipher is not a "subpar" autoattacker as they do pretty good damage. Cipher is also not a substitute for a wizard in a party (both can solo pretty well, but that's a separate topic), cipher will usually take the role of something like barbarian i. e. he's really good at decimating crowds without tapping into any per rest stuff. There are some tricks that will keep him effective for boss fights, like using cipher drugs (carrow golan is the best one). For tough enemies you'll also need the absolute best accuracy you can get so build/buff accordingly. I'd say that in 2.0 perception and dexterity are the most important cipher stats as might is compensated by the good damage bonuses ciphers get. You'll also need some int obviously. And you can go full glass cannon and pump all 4 offensive stats of course if that works in your party.

 

I also don't remember GM stats as I never really used her, but most companions have crappy stat distributions and ciphers are very sensitive about that, as they need very good offensive capabilities for snowballing.

Edited September 28, 2015 by MadDemiurg

[AndreaColombo]

GM has a very suboptimal stat distribution, although her high INT score helps with CC.

 

That said, Ciphers can generate focus rather well/fast with Stormcaller as well.

[Sfzrx]

i suggest using warbows, as they don't need to reload and hit for a nice amount of damage, the best weapon for cipher imo is

The Rain of Godagh Field, with durgan steel enchant and fire lash enchant, the attack speed bonus from the enchants on the weapon combined with tier 7 cipher spell result in literally NO recovery animation, only attack animations, i have no idea how the math worked but it seemed to me that 85% bonus attack speed gave me no recovery animation at all, guns have really long reload animation combined with recovery animation and attack animation making them rather inefficient, not to mention the accuracy penalty and less crit mutliplier, same with arblests and crossbows, the reload animation is simply too long, only ranger's swift aim can effectively reduce 50% of it, sureilla chant and gunner talents are nice but chanters suck and don't have many spare talents.

 

for dragons tactical meld can be cast before combat start, and then priests can buff later for all target, i recommand 2 strategies, first one is debuff the dragons first with druid tier 6 venombloom, or debuffs from weapons on your teammates, and let your cipher cast tier 7 phase out spell , phase out the dragon, clean the adds, and then setup position and rekt the dragon after positioning and party  fully buffed. another strat is cc the dragon with other classes and just spam amplified wave, the wave will knock down adds and make fight less chaotic,  always hit the adds for focus generation early and spam spells, for dragon fights you'll prob only have 4 spells to choose from sadly, tactical meld at the start, then either phase out or amplified wave to control, when the situation is under control, can cast the attack speed tier 7 skills to make enemy slower and make you hit  A LOT  faster, and of course, generate focus faster.

 

although ciphers can't spam cc like wizard, they actually do pretty good single target damage after buffs, and amplified wave's large radius really helps fighting large amount of enemies, for example when fighting alpine dragon, your cipher can either phase out the dragon or amplified wave to knockdown the ghosts and ice elementals/slime. and always aim for high accuracy, GM's perception stat is rather low sadly, 8 less perception compare to a custom cipher, ontop of the lack of woodelf racial, making her have 13 less accuracy compare to a custom cipher, the difference is huge, which makes levels rather important when fighting alpine dragon, should use the +2 perception enchant, +5 accuracy gloves, +3 per resting bonus, to reduce miss/graze chance, and of course the +25% focus gain amulet.

 

cipher and wizard are my favourite two classes in the game, i strongly recommand you take both lol, as they are both very powerful.

Edited September 28, 2015 by Sfzrx

[EbonKnight]

Hey guys, new here! So, I've finally with White March decided to make my plunge into PoE.. old vet of Baldur's and Icewind, but this new system in Pillars seems like a whole new bag of tricks to get your head around.. anyhow, after a lot of thought, I decided the coolest build to start off for my PC would be a melee cipher.. quite simply, I don't really dig the idea of running around with a bow, blunderbuss even less so.. thing is, this seems to be a fairly challenging build from what I understand. Now  I'm getting mixed messages about the importance of stats, so if anyone could just straight up point me to a good stat allocation with some reasoning behind it that'd be great (spell recommendations etc I think I can figure out x) My basic idea is generating a lot of focus with dual wielding sabres, being kinda sneaky so -I- don't take the attacks but let the tanks sort that out, but still be able to take a hit or two or at least disable dudes.. so from what I figure resolve might not be all that important, ditto with con. However, I'm completely lost as to the importance of might vs perception and dex + it would be great to have as many possibilities for conversations as possible, so I guess int/per are better than dex. Anyways, not to rant on, that's just the basic framework, but I'm totally open to any and all build ideas as long as it's cool, melee and effective (and a cipher.. but eeehh could be persuaded into a wizard too I guess, kensai-style x))

[MasterCipher]

I don't have trouble with focus gain or dps on pistol. Talisman of the Unconquerable is another 25% focus gain. The focus gain food items also stack with each other (Carow plus the one that starts with B). 10% ranged damage gloves or crit bonus gloves (more damage = more focus gain). Chanters are worth carrying in a group for the +25% fire damage chant alone, which is another huge boost for your focus. If you have a priest, use the +20 accuracy AoE buff and the +10 MIG/PER  (+30% damage and +10 ACC) single target buff on your cipher. Don't neglect inn resting stat bonuses and food. Food stacks, but doesn't overlap, so you can get +2 to all your stats very cheaply.

 

A reliable way to start fights is by having your Cipher or Wiz sneak into range to cast Confusion. The rest of the mobs burn their first wave of attacks surrounding and beating the poor confused mob into the ground and it buys you a lot of time to set up your CC and buffs. Using 1 summon/rest items as cannon fodder can also help for the harder fights.

 

I don't need to fire many shots in combat for focus because the focus gain per hit from firearms is so high and I want to start casting abilities that cost focus. One of which, actually lets you gain more focus than it cost: use Detonate to kill badly injured mob near other mobs. The crush AoE is considered a weapon attack, so apprentice sneak attack applies too >)   

[Luma Akasha]

Torm, as your cypher evolves, you're going to want to hit hard enough to cast an ability every other hit. You also want to keep the frequency of those hits often enough to be relevant in combat. A Warbow is your best option for that once blunderbusses start to slow down.

[Ymarsakar]

GM is not built for blunderbuss. You have to use the pistol, like St Spark at least. Blunderbuss needs high might to penetrate DR and high accuracy, but normally the acc is taken care of by mental paralysis.

 

Draining and biting whip are the two must haves for the cipher, plus the amulet or the White march upgraded amulet for ciphers, plus blacsonn and the other food buff for harder fights.

 

Persistence short bow is probably one of the better weapons for an early cipher.

 

I don't use the out of combat buffs on the cipher at all, it's too annoying to rotate through. The damage on the 25% aura is also unpredictable at times. If I use out of combat, it's the damage spell, echo.

 

Persistence has about the same damage as a warbow, but faster rof, but slightly less accuracy.

 

I set GM's resolve to 3 +1 +1 and put the rest into dex and might. To do good damage with the pistol, you need the gunner reload trait and a relatively high dex. Wearing no or light armor will also help.

 

Generally with ciphers they are microed to auto attack to self or defense only, and with no class ai on at all.

 

You pick out a target that has low will and then mentally paralyze them, the cipher will then attack them while they are debuffed. This is how you can run cc and still apply good damage. Without a wizard or priest, you are going to be hurting. The cipher is not a versatile casting class, it cannot debuff or cc the way wizards can at higher levels. It's much closer to the chanter or other dps classes. It needs some time to get focus up, and while you can buy time with mental paralysis, you won't have enough focus to cast other spells like the 6-10x beam spells which do most of your damage aside from auto attacks against paralyzed enemies.

 

Ideally the wizard casts miasma debuff and the cipher casts will attack spells. I wouldn't take the +10 focus. That's for easier fights, not harder ones. 

[MasterCipher]

-70 will -30 fort -20 reflex debuff combo:

 

Priest: Painful Interdiction

Wizard: Miasma + Noxious Burst

 

Pretty much guarantees crits with your Will attacks (i.e. 13.5s stun with silent scream, 100 damage mind lance on a high MIG INT build)

[Torm51]

rock out guys.  I have not used a Cipher a lot so this helping a lot.

[Ymarsakar]

Cipher is definitely one of the more finicky classes to micro and deal with, which is harder on you Torm if you get a high level cipher without going up through the level first to see how basic abilities work.

 

Generally like the chanter, the cipher makes good use of low level abilities even at later game. Less focus means you can cast it more, so it becomes a tactical decision whether to use amplified or the aoe confusion spells over more reliable, dps, cc spells that cost less focus.

 

For most pulls against equal or lower level monsters, 6 or below in numbers, mental paralysis plus gun will be an easy tactic to use and will suffice for most of them. This is why I set auto attack to defensive, because the cipher should ideally save their alpha until after the cc hits, theirs or somebody else's. The paladin then fires the arquebus along with my other arquebus users, which can be enough to kill an enemy with 200 hp.

 

For larger fights, you will want to figure out how to position yourself so that antipathetic rays and echo rays will get you the most damage, enemies in line of your fire. Generally I tried with a chanter as main tank puller and cast two echo rays on him, then had the chanter run around and turn the enemies facing the party, so they get hit Mind lance is also a quick cast at higher focus, for a damage spell that behaves like the lightning bolt, and at 20+ might can do about 90-100 damage on a crit. Mind wave costs 10 focus and prones people, so treat that as a lesser version of slicken. Painblock, higher focus spell, is a longer duration version of lay on hands, heals for less but prevents more damage with the DR. Save that for emergencies or if the paladin cannot cast a lay on hands.

 

Generally for tougher fights, using the cc on the cipher is only to buy more time until you use your other party to turn the odds around. In tougher fights, the sheer dps of echo and antipathetic wave will break the enemy. Paladins cannot even heal through that kind of damage. All you have to do is to Hold Position and prevent the cipher from dying.

 

Antipathetic ray has six procs of 20-25 damage corrosive + the beam damage buff from anti. Echo can hit or crit to 40-60 damage easily at 20+ might, it has 10 procs of foe only beams. Thus I use the mental paralysis + gun alpha trick against enemies with high hp or who are dangerous tactically speaking. I use the ray for when I need two rogue's worth of damage on the enemy, because everybody on the other side is dangerous and the numbers are too high to handle.

 

The cipher has a number of different cc or crowd control. The charm/domination school and the paralysis aoe stuck spell. Plus some more aoe stuff at higher focus like amplified wave, which deals damage and prones people in a fireball aoe effect. What makes the cipher interesting for me is that I get to pick different spells and only use them when I think there is a tactical need for them. They can get pretty boring with the mental paralysis + gun trick if that is all you ever use. The charm is a low focus spell, 10, but is more useful than it seems. It debuffs the enemy so they can't kill our enemies, but makes them take more damage from their former allies. And it also allows for manual focus fire from the party on the charmed enemy, as their defenses are debuffed. If you charm an enemy chanter, you get their buffs. If you charm a spellcaster, they start casting spells or just take a lot of damage getting interrupted.

 

Since GM's low might score affects focus gain over a long battle, she is mostly a cc cipher and dps only if you use echo and anti rays. Her per and relatively high int, allows her to make better use of mental paralysis and charm. Which are pretty much the stock tools of the cipher at all levels.

 

The 2.0 AI did a pretty good job of casting charm at the beginning of fights, if you have the ai class set to crowd control. But the AI's choice of the cipher's other abilities aren't necessarily optimum. For one thing, they don't know when to cast the spell vs when to keep getting focus. There's a timing for when cc is needed.

 

In big long fights, I sometimes notice my cipher has 100+ focus left unused. That is when it is time to use the high focus abilities and dump it out, like a monk uses up wounds. But that's usually right as the fight ends. This usually happens because I was being conservative with the use of my focus, keeping some in reserve for emergencies and I just kept doing damage with my blunderbuss. It can hit for 50-150 damage in total. With 18 dex and reload trait, light to no armor, it can fire maybe every 6-7 seconds. Might be even faster, haven't checked specifically. Another funny trick with cipher is that many of the spells are fast cast, and you want to pick those first if they are any good. Because fast cast spells means you spend less time recovery, which means more time getting dps on target and focus back. Mind wave, mind lance, amplified thrust, can all be interesting and very annoying to enemies. I got hit by mind wave one time when my party was grouped together, proned everyone except one person, and then the enemy was surrounding me with his melee chargers.

 

The heavy hitters were the rogue, ranger, and cipher, as designed by Obsidian. Most people notice the rogue's damage. The ranger loses a significant chunk of dps if the pet dies or basically starts doing nothing. But the cipher's dps is only auto attack + the whip effect... if you don't ever cast the damage spells.

Edited September 30, 2015 by Ymarsakar

[Ymarsakar]

Hey guys, new here! So, I've finally with White March decided to make my plunge into PoE.. old vet of Baldur's and Icewind, but this new system in Pillars seems like a whole new bag of tricks to get your head around.. anyhow, after a lot of thought, I decided the coolest build to start off for my PC would be a melee cipher.. quite simply, I don't really dig the idea of running around with a bow, blunderbuss even less so.. thing is, this seems to be a fairly challenging build from what I understand. Now  I'm getting mixed messages about the importance of stats, so if anyone could just straight up point me to a good stat allocation with some reasoning behind it that'd be great (spell recommendations etc I think I can figure out x) My basic idea is generating a lot of focus with dual wielding sabres, being kinda sneaky so -I- don't take the attacks but let the tanks sort that out, but still be able to take a hit or two or at least disable dudes.. so from what I figure resolve might not be all that important, ditto with con. However, I'm completely lost as to the importance of might vs perception and dex + it would be great to have as many possibilities for conversations as possible, so I guess int/per are better than dex. Anyways, not to rant on, that's just the basic framework, but I'm totally open to any and all build ideas as long as it's cool, melee and effective (and a cipher.. but eeehh could be persuaded into a wizard too I guess, kensai-style x))

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=416939844

 

For build details of classes and some explanations.

 

The melee cipher can be interesting, although you need the fire godlike to really get focus when attacked. But it plays more like a rogue than anything else and doesn't have a lot of the tactical flexibility of the ranged cipher. Obsidian designed the wizard with the idea of the gith fighter or the muscle wizard in mind.

 

Full plate, retaliation, fire godlike cipher with dual sabers can still kick out a substantial amount of dps for focus, while still doing some off tanking.

Edited September 30, 2015 by Ymarsakar

[EbonKnight]

Thanks man, I checked out that link though I do dislike how min-maxy everything is, I tend to like not ever going below 10 in a stat, 8 at the worst Yeah, seems from the perspective of getting the most out of the story content and companions AND out of the perspective of being an effective melee glass cannon a Rogue does a lot better than  Cipher.. still, going to experiment a bit see what I can come up with, Cipher's too fun to give up on. I just wish they didn't give Wood Elves such an obvious advantage for any ranged class as I'd never roll a wood elf (never was a fan in D&D, at best sun elves if I have to be an elf) but the bonus is damn tempting. Amazing how they almost always screw over Humans, but at least here it's not as bad as in the Shadowrun universe x)

[Ymarsakar]

You don't need to follow everything by word, but it's a better explanation of the basic mechanics than can be covered here in text that isn't the Wall of China size. He also has youtube videos detailing more why certain abilities are chosen at what level.

 

<B>I just wish they didn't give Wood Elves such an obvious advantage for any ranged class as I'd never roll a wood elf </b>

 

Don't underestimate the Orlans hit to crit conversion. It's was one of the better dps abilities at build 1.0 even and still is. The amaua build with multiple switching guns is also pretty neat, for micro builds.

 

A lot of the dialogue options are more flavor and shortcuts. I often do a quest without taking the high resolve shortcut, because it is just more interesting and role play like. Notably the brothel quest.

 

If the steam guide didn't explain why certain stats are taken, then check out the youtube videos. The explanation should be there. I used the build videos as a foundation to test my own builds in combination with those ideas, to come up with a fun and satisfactory mix that is suitable for my play style.

Edited September 30, 2015 by Ymarsakar