Cipher 3.0 - roll a Wizard instead

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

Tactical Meld was so good because it basically cost no focus. You could cast it before starting the encounter - your focus would be resetted when encounter starts. They nerfed that and it's OK. The other good thing was/is that you don't need to overcome any defense since you cast it on an ally. But the power is way too costly for only +20 ACC now.

 

 

Ah ok I see yeah. I've always assumed that powers being castable outside of combat was a bug so I never used them that way. 

 

For me right now it falls in the "theoretically useful" category of things like Soul Ignition. If I know I'm in for a long fight against a small number of targets, and those targets have very high defenses -- say something like the Sky Dragon or the final Thaos fight -- then it's nice to have the added boost, in theory. But in practice in those fights I'm probably prioritizing other powers (pain block) first. 

[Blades of Vanatar]

Not sure about you guys, but to me speed is the ultimate source of power. Being able to unleash phenomenal cosmic powers three hours after the fight ensued means nothing to me—and right now Ciphers don't even have phenomenal cosmic powers. I like fast-paced combat and always play with characters that dish out lots of damage really fast. Fighters, Monks, Rogues, Rangers, Wizards, Druids etc. are all able to do that. Chanters and Ciphers aren't. I can excuse Chanters, since they're mostly meant as support characters (same goes for Priests), but Ciphers should be an offensive class; there is no excuse for offensive classes to be slow. You're slow, you're out; by the time you're ready to do your move, all enemies have been wiped by the fast guys.

I mostly agree.... except that leaves some classes in the never use category. You are using the "A good Offense is the best Defense" theory. Though you may be correct, some players hate not having a strong defense as their starting point and prefer to build to the big hit. So the classes that have late fight cosmic powers can shine when paired with Several tanks for example. To me the devs should make every class viable in both scenarios. Ciphers should have the capability to either last throughout a battle or throw a big punch early. Just like a Wizard or Druid.

[Elric Galad]

Sorry, I do think that Echo is just too powerful.

 

About anything that would get caught in the ray is going to die in seconds. It seemed that there was a bug applying cipher +40% damage or maybe crazy acc buff like old priest seal : damages displayed were almost always higher that the maximum stated in the description (potd). I found it so cheesy that I stopped using it.

 

But the mechanic is so cool that I hope that they will not nerf it to the ground !

 

Mental binding was nerfed too much. Now you have about 4s cast time for about 5s+ hard CC on single target... they could have kept the fast casting at least. It would not have been OP.

 

They have also nerfed mind blades by the way...

 

Many cipher powers were never really balanced. A lot of them are simply too weak (lvl 7 is just so bad). And there id a few OP powers nerfed one after the other to the point of being unusable.

 

In 3.0 beta, the only thing left to cipher is Echo. And it is even still OP as no martial class will never reach the level of damage of a properly used Echo.

 

But I don't want a cipher that would become a "one and a half trick poney". And I don't want another cool cipher power like Echo to be rendered unusable by a crazy nerf.

Edited February 1, 2016 by Elric Galad

[Boeroer]

How did they nerf Mind Blades? It already got nerfed in 1.6 or 2.0. Even less damage?

 

Does Amplified Thrust (not Wave) still generate it's own focus? That used to be a nice effect and wasn't too powerful because it's single target only and you're not able to pick a special foe.

Edited February 1, 2016 by Boeroer

[Elric Galad]

Sorry, I was not very clear.

Mind blades were good so they nerfed it like crazy (not in 3.0, sorry if I was not clear).

Mental binding was good so they nerfed it like crazy.

Amplified wave was good so nerfed it AND cipher.

The history of cipher in PoE is an history of a class which shines because of a few spells that gets shot one after the other.

Edited February 1, 2016 by Elric Galad

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

How did they nerf Mind Blades? It already got nerfed in 1.6 or 2.0. Even less damage?

 

Does Amplified Thrust (not Wave) still generate it's own focus? That used to be a nice effect and wasn't too powerful because it's single target only and you're not able to pick a special foe.

 

Mind Blades was nerfed way back in the Backer Beta, had its damage dramatically reduced to its present near-uselessness. Now it's only useful if you're trying to hit around corners. Again, theoretically useful but not really, mostly because everything and its brother has slashing resistance.

 

Can't speak to Thrust because I've always assumed it's a bug that it generates focus so I don't take the power.

Edited February 1, 2016 by Dr. Hieronymous Alloy

[HawkSoft]

Can't speak to Thrust because I've always assumed it's a bug that it generates focus so I don't take the power.

I'd never really noticed Thrust generating focus, I see it as a tool to push aggro away from a squishy and give them time to cast something nasty.

Its weak spot it that the cipher can't cast it on themselves or an allied NPC.

[Boeroer]

When it hits low DR foes it even generates more focus than it costs.

 

Mind Blades could be good if they worked with Penetrating Shot and Ryona's Vembraces. Do they? In combination with Expose Vulnerabilities it could still be useful...?

 

I once had 6 ciphers and Mind Blades was good if you could cast it six times at once.

[Wolken3156]

Mind Blades was nerfed way back in the Backer Beta, had its damage dramatically reduced to its present near-uselessness. Now it's only useful if you're trying to hit around corners. Again, theoretically useful but not really, mostly because everything and its brother has slashing resistance.

 

Can't speak to Thrust because I've always assumed it's a bug that it generates focus so I don't take the power.

Mind Blades is still a good early AoE attack during the point of the game where such attacks are a lot more limited. I only really use it for that, its use gets more and more limited as the enemy's DR increases.

 

Never been much of a fan of Amplified Thrust; if I wanted single target damage I'd just stick with my weapon instead. The knock back could be useful, but generally I don't really care if my other characters get attacked. The only one that usually matters with my group is the Cipher itself, and they can't target themselves with it.

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

I've made several changes to cipher powers at every level to increase their power, but those changes are not in the current beta.

 

I've improved a lot of the powers that were lacking previously and buffed up higher level ones in terms of affliction duration, damage, and overall duration.  E.g. Puppet Master is now an Instant cast and has a base 16s duration.  Detonate does much more damage to the target and surrounding enemies.  Borrowed Instinct and Tactical Meld both have 25s base durations.

 

I've also boosted the base amount of Focus gain per point of damage dealt from 0.25 to 0.35.

 

 

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3706905&pagenumber=721#post455731131

 

Mind Blades base damage has been increased by about 30%.  Silent Scream direct target and AoE damage have been increased by a lot and the Stunned duration on the main target has been increased to base 8s.

 

Edited February 2, 2016 by Dr. Hieronymous Alloy

[Elric Galad]

Ok, they choosed the "easiest way".

But that's ok.

I've whined enough on this topic. Let's wait and see what happens now.

[Raven Darkholme]

This is kinda hilarious.

[Boeroer]

Don't know why they chose the complicated way - but if the buffs are good and the cipher changes from "spam meh powers" to "punktually cast wow powers" and the overall "power level" stays the same then it's OK for me.

 

But it's a bit silly to increase focus cost and then increase focus generation, or not? Result is that the low level spells get even more spammable while the high level powers get better but cast not so often - but maybe that's exactly what they want to achieve.

[Elric Galad]

I would say that less frequent and more powerful spells is even more attractive.

 

Anything that would prevent from spamming amplified wave is good news anyway.

[Boeroer]

Well that got nerfed anyway.

[wiarygodny]

Yes! Great news. Something is telling me that I will love my favourite class even more soon.

[Elric Galad]

Now that powers cost about twice more focus, greater focus should be set to 20 more starting focus.

 

If not, this talent is going to be rather useless (which is not very critical, but an useless talent is not so nice).

[wiarygodny]

20 would be too much for low level cipher. I think that +5 from the start and +1 per every level you have would be nice.

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

Honestly i find the ten pointboost valuable. At level ten its the difference between opening with a rank four power and opening with a rank three power.

[Boeroer]

But it always had this effect - was even better because the difference between levels was only 5 points of focus instead of 10.

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

Right, but in 3.0, you need 10 more points more, than you needed 20 more points at release.

 

Water is more valuable in the desert.

[HawkSoft]

Water is more valuable in the desert.

Don't say that, I've just attempted to play my backer copy of Wasteland 2, brown toons on a brown background and some joker telling me to pick up a can…

[Recklessly Impressionable]

Well, Josh posted on twitter that the Cipher is getting buffed thanks to player feedback. Good show gents, this thread may have accomplished something; with this upcoming Cipher buff, i think all the classes might be worth using now.

[Wolken3156]

Well, Josh posted on twitter that the Cipher is getting buffed thanks to player feedback. Good show gents, this thread may have accomplished something; with this upcoming Cipher buff, i think all the classes might be worth using now.

Would've made more sense to change the Focus costs back rather than increase Focus gained. Eh, maybe it'll work out anyway.

[DreamWayfarer]

Would've made more sense to change the Focus costs back rather than increase Focus gained. Eh, maybe it'll work out anyway.

They increased focus gain by a relatively small amount compared to the increase in costs, the difference is that they are also buffing the strenght of many powers.

 

I guess the goal was to make ciphers auto-attack more often.