Help, overwhelmed with the Character Creation

[Co0n]

Hey guys!

 

I just created over 20 characters and I just dont know what to do anymore.

 

I am looking for a character in heavy or medium armor dealing a good chunk of damage with his melee weapon and the ocassional spell/ability.

The character should be able to take a hit or two without dieing instantly.

(Short: no Glass Cannon, no Tank, Good damage, Fun abilities)

 

I play on hard and I dont really like min maxing tooooo much (no ultra stupid characters etc.).

 

What class would you prefer for my needs?

 

My thoughts:

 

Fighter: first few levels low damage, no fun abilities, pretty much out.

Chanter: dont like

Cipher: played one once, liked it. dont know how to build it as described above :-/

Druid: also played one, was ok.

Paladin: Sounds like exactly what I described above, does he have offensive abilities aswell? is he a good frontline damage dealer?

Ranger: no idea if that would work for me, comments?

Barbarian: dont think we will ever become friends

Rogue: just too squishy for me :-/

Wizard: haha... no

Edited March 7, 2016 by Co0n

[JerekKruger]

Boeroer's Backlash Bedlam might fit the bill. It's a Cipher build wearing heavy armour (brigandine) which stacks multiple retaliate abilities to generate a fair amount of damage and also focus, which it can then use to use it's powerful Cipher powers.

[Boeroer]

Yeah well - she's fun and powerful and all - but that build unfolds it's retaliation greatness pretty late (after you get Sura'S Supper Plate). Maybe it's not so great for beginners because the early game can be a bit difficult - especially if you find rogues too squishy.  

 

What you didn't list is the monk. He fits your description perfectly. I don't know any other melee class that is more fun than a monk. Ok, I also love barbs, but they only start to shine after you get some lvls and good equipment. Before that they are a bit tedius to play.

But a monk on the other hand is pure fun from lvl 1 without any equipment at all. His fists alon are awesoe weapons. He's sturdy, does great damage, has the best overall starting stats of any class. He loves it when he gets hit. And don't think of PoE monks are like D&D monks. Monks in PoE can wear heavy armor and wield any weapon. Their special abilities are so much fun and work with any melee weapon. Force of Anguish alone is so satisfying: you basically punch a guy in the gut and he flies through the scene and goes prone forever. 

[Blades of Vanatar]

Monk with heavy armour and dual Mace and Flail.

 

Have you tried Chanter? They are great in Heavy Armour as their phrases go by themselves. Go with Island Aumanua wielding Pistol, Pistol, Sabre and Shield. He is a frontliner who starts with 2 shots to the face then Slices and Tanks. A great choice for the Main Char as they have good starting Reflection.

[Ymarsakar]

Zahua showed me the power of monks in White March 1, when fighting against paralyzing poison fishes. So when I restarted POTD anew, I decided to go with a monk as main. Works with a lot of different weapons and armors, so is flexible when I change my party around.

 

Until you actually play the class for a few dungeons and to level 6-12, you don't know what the class even plays like. Without the experience, choosing one over the other is a dice roll, random luck. Some of the classes get interesting at certain levels.

[Braven]

I agree about trying out a monk.  Seems to fit what you want best.  A lot of people get hung up over the fact that the game seems to lead you towards using "fists" and some feel like they are wasting their class power if you don't only use fists.  Really, fists are completely optional and not always the best choice anyways.

 

I want to try a high-regeneration monk soon as a "more fun" alternative to my fighter build.  Basically, see how many "wounds" I can make a single monk bleed out without actually falling over and dying.  To control the pace of damage, I think the stunning abilities would be great, and also the most fun.  DPS would also be pretty good since he would need to hit things fast and hard with endurance draining weapons to fuel the wounds.  Just need to think it over some more.  One problem is that the monk really wants every stat (except maybe resolve).  I think "maximum healing multiplier" will be key.

 

Ranger doesn't have any spells, or even spell like abilities, so the "interesting part" would be positioning the pet and keeping it at the edge of death.  But that really isn't that interesting.  There abilities/talents tend to be just about making the pet stronger, which is also kind of boring.

Edited March 7, 2016 by Braven

[Boeroer]

Sadly, you can only stack 10 wounds. After that you will only get hurt without gaining any more.  Regeneration is still great for a monk because you also want to spend those wounds and get hit again.

[Blades of Vanatar]

Ranger has more flexibility than others let on. They can melee or missile. They get a free meat shield that with patches now can DPS pretty well. You can build missile Rangers in many different ways including as implements wielders. They are very flexible characters. I went with a Barb, 3 Rangers and 2 Druid party. It was unstoppable on PoTD.

[Mocker22]

Paladin might be up your ally. They have good defenses and great party utility. Paladins can do very good damage but its really only on a couple of big hits, i.e. Alpha Strikes with Flames of Devotion.

 

Why the fighter hate? They are extremely versatile in how you build them. Fighter is probably one of two classes that is damn powerful right out of the gate. Take Knockdown, Disciplined Barrage, Weapon focus Adventurer, and Two Handed Style. Take Kana's Fine Estoc and add a flame lash(this can be had extremely fast, like RIGHT after getting to Gilded Vale). You'll be doing very good dps, tanking better than anyone at that level except maybe monk.

[Aramintai]

I'd say cipher or paladin, they sure have fun and useful abilities and the rest of your criteria fits.

Ciphers were always unique and powerful in this game, put some proper gear on them and they'll truly become a force to be reckoned with.

As for paladins, after the patch and some fiddling I now know how to make even Pallegina a good damage dealer/off tank/support, she's my main stay now. And this fun synergy makes it super easy to deal with all sorts of nasty will affecting effects, Radiant Spore was denied all the fun, lol:

https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/84869-fun-ability-synergy-sacred-immolation-and-aegis-of-loyalty/

 

I agree about fighters and chanters though, they're boring, but at least one fighter is good to have around for boring but essential tanking duty. Chanters are good for nothing, there are better classes out there who do more things for the party.

 

The most fun class for me personally though is rogue. Sure you need to manage him cuz he's squishy, but seeing those ridiculously high damage numbers roll is just too hilarious to miss out on.

Edited March 8, 2016 by Aramintai

[Ymarsakar]

Paladin might be up your ally. They have good defenses and great party utility. Paladins can do very good damage but its really only on a couple of big hits, i.e. Alpha Strikes with Flames of Devotion.

 

Why the fighter hate? They are extremely versatile in how you build them. Fighter is probably one of two classes that is damn powerful right out of the gate. Take Knockdown, Disciplined Barrage, Weapon focus Adventurer, and Two Handed Style. Take Kana's Fine Estoc and add a flame lash(this can be had extremely fast, like RIGHT after getting to Gilded Vale). You'll be doing very good dps, tanking better than anyone at that level except maybe monk.

 

Fighters were very easy to learn when I was playing POE first time. They tended to not require micro, more forgiving on mistakes in tactics.

 

I'm glad to see some of the dps abilities got buffed, since the fighter needed it as people were not using them because their utility only extended to their personal defense, not the party's offense or defense.

 

A fighter with disciplined barrage feels "good" in the beginning now. Of course, I also stopped using large shields. That would have helped in my first playthrough, although back then the main tank needed a very high deflection. Above 70-90. Sagani back then, had about 10-20% of the dps she has now. Aloth didn't have per encounter raw damage. The NPCs didn't start with fine weapons.

Edited March 9, 2016 by Ymarsakar

[Braven]

Fighters shine best when played very aggressively, with either a two-hander or two weapons. All of their best abilities are only fully utilized if they get hit a lot and actually receive damage at a steady pace, so boosting their deflection skyhigh with shields and defensive talents is actually anti-synergy. Doing so wastes the fighter's best powers like constant recovery, unbending, triggered immunity, unbroken, and others.

 

I think defense-oriented, shield bearing characters are much better off being a chanter or paladin. Those classes have better synergy focusing on high defenses at the expense of offense.

 

A fighter is meant to be a front liner that doesn't mind getting hurt a lot and believes that the best defense is all his enemies dead as quick as possible. This is because they want the battle over before their powerful per encounter ability durations and endurance regeneration duration runs out.

 

They are both a great "tank" and a high DPS killing machine if built optimally.

Edited March 9, 2016 by Braven

[lameover]

About Cipher.

 

Cipher - Zealot Fenix

I'm not that big of a fan of melee ciphers, but that's not because they're weak – it's just that they are frail in melee and thus have to over rely on their Mental Binding. It's pretty much their entire life – cast mental binding, carve their target, cast some more, carve some more, repeat ad nauseam. And melee is not as good in terms of Antipathetic/Ectopsychic positioning as ranged is. Still, you can play them this way.

 

Role: second damage dealer, disabler & buffer

 

Race: anything offensive.

 

Stats (Boreal Dwarf, with the Living Lands bonus included):

 

M 21
C 9
D 10
P 10
I 18
R 10

 

Going min-maxey is not that great for melee cipher – while you plan on protecting yourself with the Binding, it's not exactly guaranteed and anything may happen in the process. So even stats give us extra chances in case of that. Also, extra resolve allows us to use charms efficiently and, as we already plan on being in close range anyways, why not abuse that to the fullest?

 

Weapon of Choice: duals – stilettos or sabres.

 

Talents, ability and power choices:

 

1st level: Antipathetic Field – not as great for us as it works best when you stay far from your foes, but too useful early on to pass up.

Whisper of Treason – charms are incredibly good. For 14 second, the most dangerous foe stops fighting you and tries to harm his team. And his team tries to harm him back in return. Note that the poor charmed fella will have 25 penalty to his Accuracy & protections – he won't be good at killing his ex-buddies but they will harm him extremely well. Keep that in mind when choosing the target. You can also attack it by pressing the A keyboard button, but that tends to break the charm.

 

2nd level: Mind Wave – cutting prone foes will also work when we're too low on Focus or time to cast binding.

Talent: Biting Whip – ranged or not, never ignore this one.

 

3rd level: Mental Binding – this one makes or breaks the build so we shouldn't leave the home without it. As I've said, this is our bread n' butter skill.

Psychovampiric Shield: our chances to get hurt are much higher than for the ranged build so potential extra deflection is nice. At least theoretically – practically it's usually binding anyways.

 

4th level:

Talent: Vulnerable Attack – gives crazy damage to the duals and that means excellent focus gain for us.

Amplified Thrust – just to burn through our focus reserves. Melee generates more focus than raged (that's the reward for all the risk) so more often than not you'll have more points that you will be able to use conventionally.

 

5th level: Ectopsychic Echo – not as perfect as it is for the ranged cipher. For example, you can't really cast it from stealth because then you're standing far away from the foe (that's the stealth plan) so you can't hit anyone to replenish some focus. Still, it will get occasionally useful.

Puppet Master – since we're going the close distance route, why not? I still prefer charm to it but this can be better against certain foes.

 

6th level:

Pain Link – as usual, wins by the margin of being free.

Talent: Draining Whip – with all our fast casts, we can always use some extra focus.

 

7th level: Body Attunement – the DR gain here is much more important for you than for the ranged ciphers. Especially as the duals make it easy to wear plate armor without suffering much from it. Fast casting speed helps too.

Pain Block - but let's not get egoistic, healing others may also be useful.

 

8th level: Weapon Focus: Ruffian.

Mind Lance – extra ways of burning that spare focus.

 

9th level: Ringleader – since our resolve is decent (as decent as it gets under 2.0 when it became sorta global dump stat) and we're geared towards the frontline operations (and, hopefully, our party is geared around supporting us under such conditions), this one makes us significantly more powerful. The ability to use Ringleader nicely is probably the trump card of this build.

Tactical Meld – free stuff that leads to dealing more damage is always nice, right?

 

10th level: Borrowed Instinct – nice combo of buff and debuff, though with our basic perception it's not as reliable as we'd like it to be.

Two-Weapon Fighting.

 

11th level: Amplified Wave – great for us. We probably stop using the binding and use this, then hack on the prone targets to regain focus, then wave some more.

Mind Plague – still helps in the boss fights..

 

12th level: Disintegration.

Apprentice's Sneak Attack.

 

13th level: Time Parasite – not as useful for us as we need to first control the victim reliaby and only then we have the luxury to cast things like these. Very powerful when we do have the time for it.

 

14th level: Stasis Shell.

Greater Focus.

 

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

Edited March 9, 2016 by lameover

[Ymarsakar]

Fighters shine best when played very aggressively, with either a two-hander or two weapons. All of their best abilities are only fully utilized if they get hit a lot and actually receive damage at a steady pace, so boosting their deflection skyhigh with shields and defensive talents is actually anti-synergy. Doing so wastes the fighter's best powers like constant recovery, unbending, triggered immunity, unbroken, and others.

 

I think defense-oriented, shield bearing characters are much better off being a chanter or paladin. Those classes have better synergy focusing on high defenses at the expense of offense.

 

A fighter is meant to be a front liner that doesn't mind getting hurt a lot and believes that the best defense is all his enemies dead as quick as possible. This is because they want the battle over before their powerful per encounter ability durations and endurance regeneration duration runs out.

 

They are both a great "tank" and a high DPS killing machine if built optimally.

 

Have you tried out the newer fray, aoe cone prone, and overbearing abilities?

[Raven Darkholme]

Paladin deals huge amount of damage once he is level 13, before that he only does decent with 2 handed weapons like Tidefall.

Once he has sacred immolation he is pretty broken.

About Cipher.

 

Cipher - Zealot Fenix

I'm not that big of a fan of melee ciphers, but that's not because they're weak – it's just that they are frail in melee and thus have to over rely on their Mental Binding. It's pretty much their entire life – cast mental binding, carve their target, cast some more, carve some more, repeat ad nauseam. And melee is not as good in terms of Antipathetic/Ectopsychic positioning as ranged is. Still, you can play them this way.

 

Role: second damage dealer, disabler & buffer

 

Race: anything offensive.

 

Stats (Boreal Dwarf, with the Living Lands bonus included):

 

M 21
C 9
D 10
P 10
I 18
R 10

 

Going min-maxey is not that great for melee cipher – while you plan on protecting yourself with the Binding, it's not exactly guaranteed and anything may happen in the process. So even stats give us extra chances in case of that. Also, extra resolve allows us to use charms efficiently and, as we already plan on being in close range anyways, why not abuse that to the fullest?

 

Weapon of Choice: duals – stilettos or sabres.

 

Talents, ability and power choices:

 

1st level: Antipathetic Field – not as great for us as it works best when you stay far from your foes, but too useful early on to pass up.

Whisper of Treason – charms are incredibly good. For 14 second, the most dangerous foe stops fighting you and tries to harm his team. And his team tries to harm him back in return. Note that the poor charmed fella will have 25 penalty to his Accuracy & protections – he won't be good at killing his ex-buddies but they will harm him extremely well. Keep that in mind when choosing the target. You can also attack it by pressing the A keyboard button, but that tends to break the charm.

 

2nd level: Mind Wave – cutting prone foes will also work when we're too low on Focus or time to cast binding.

Talent: Biting Whip – ranged or not, never ignore this one.

 

3rd level: Mental Binding – this one makes or breaks the build so we shouldn't leave the home without it. As I've said, this is our bread n' butter skill.

Psychovampiric Shield: our chances to get hurt are much higher than for the ranged build so potential extra deflection is nice. At least theoretically – practically it's usually binding anyways.

 

4th level:

Talent: Vulnerable Attack – gives crazy damage to the duals and that means excellent focus gain for us.

Amplified Thrust – just to burn through our focus reserves. Melee generates more focus than raged (that's the reward for all the risk) so more often than not you'll have more points that you will be able to use conventionally.

 

5th level: Ectopsychic Echo – not as perfect as it is for the ranged cipher. For example, you can't really cast it from stealth because then you're standing far away from the foe (that's the stealth plan) so you can't hit anyone to replenish some focus. Still, it will get occasionally useful.

Puppet Master – since we're going the close distance route, why not? I still prefer charm to it but this can be better against certain foes.

 

6th level:

Pain Link – as usual, wins by the margin of being free.

Talent: Draining Whip – with all our fast casts, we can always use some extra focus.

 

7th level: Body Attunement – the DR gain here is much more important for you than for the ranged ciphers. Especially as the duals make it easy to wear plate armor without suffering much from it. Fast casting speed helps too.

Pain Block - but let's not get egoistic, healing others may also be useful.

 

8th level: Weapon Focus: Ruffian.

Mind Lance – extra ways of burning that spare focus.

 

9th level: Ringleader – since our resolve is decent (as decent as it gets under 2.0 when it became sorta global dump stat) and we're geared towards the frontline operations (and, hopefully, our party is geared around supporting us under such conditions), this one makes us significantly more powerful. The ability to use Ringleader nicely is probably the trump card of this build.

Tactical Meld – free stuff that leads to dealing more damage is always nice, right?

 

10th level: Borrowed Instinct – nice combo of buff and debuff, though with our basic perception it's not as reliable as we'd like it to be.

Two-Weapon Fighting.

 

11th level: Amplified Wave – great for us. We probably stop using the binding and use this, then hack on the prone targets to regain focus, then wave some more.

Mind Plague – still helps in the boss fights..

 

12th level: Disintegration.

Apprentice's Sneak Attack.

 

13th level: Time Parasite – not as useful for us as we need to first control the victim reliaby and only then we have the luxury to cast things like these. Very powerful when we do have the time for it.

 

14th level: Stasis Shell.

Greater Focus.

 

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

Haha, worst cipher build I've seen in a long time.

[lameover]

Haha, worst cipher build I've seen in a long time.

 

 

then, please, show better melee cipher build

[Raven Darkholme]

 

Haha, worst cipher build I've seen in a long time.

 

 

then, please, show better melee cipher build

 

You realise that the second post in this thread and the first answer to the OP links a melee cipher build?

Also it is quite ironic how you ask for a better build, while pretty much any build is better that doesn't have 10 PER, lol.

[Braven]

 

Fighters shine best when played very aggressively, with either a two-hander or two weapons. All of their best abilities are only fully utilized if they get hit a lot and actually receive damage at a steady pace, so boosting their deflection skyhigh with shields and defensive talents is actually anti-synergy. Doing so wastes the fighter's best powers like constant recovery, unbending, triggered immunity, unbroken, and others.

 

I think defense-oriented, shield bearing characters are much better off being a chanter or paladin. Those classes have better synergy focusing on high defenses at the expense of offense.

 

A fighter is meant to be a front liner that doesn't mind getting hurt a lot and believes that the best defense is all his enemies dead as quick as possible. This is because they want the battle over before their powerful per encounter ability durations and endurance regeneration duration runs out.

 

They are both a great "tank" and a high DPS killing machine if built optimally.

 

Have you tried out the newer fray, aoe cone prone, and overbearing abilities?

 

 

Fighter doesn't have any AOE prone abilities (just knockdown and that disengagement one).  Since I have only played Fighter recently as a solo build, I have not used Into-The-Fray or the disengagement one; they work better within a party.   Fighter has so many good abilities that I can't fit them all into a build.  This is particularly true with high INT fighters who benefit from all of them.  My favorite from the new expansion is Charge.  It is AOE, does tons of damage, and is twice per encounter.  Also gets you right next to the nasty enemy casters before they can unload any spells so you can kill them or knock them prone.

Edited March 9, 2016 by Braven

[AndreaColombo]

^ think he meant Clear Out.

[Ymarsakar]

Andrea is right, that is the one. Although it is 2/rest so slightly limited, but has good damage. So flexible. I was testing it out a bit on a level 14 Eder, to see if the damage and limited cone was worth it.

 

Btw, fighters in my game doesn't benefit from INT for their abilities. Is that a bug? I was waiting for someone to mention it in one of their builds, actually.

Edited March 9, 2016 by Ymarsakar

[DreamWayfarer]

Btw, fighters in my game doesn't benefit from INT for their abilities. Is that a bug? I was waiting for someone to mention it in one of their builds, actually.

They were supposed to benefit from it as normal. You should check the "Glass Tsunami" build, as it is a very powerful high-INT Fighter build.

[Braven]

I am playing a fighter now with latest patch. He does indeed benefit from INT. I think Eder has 10 INT, so it might look like INT plays no role for him.

 

Speaking of INT, does anyone know if it affects on-crit weapon stun duration?

 

For clear out, I probably saw the per/rest and immediately dismissed it as I don’t like rest limited powers. I like unleashing my full power every battle and only rest due to low health.

Edited March 10, 2016 by Braven

[Ymarsakar]

Okay, I checked, and the tooltip doesn't show up for fighters with 10 int, like Eder. But when modified, the tooltip then shows up for the duration mods.

 

I tested Eder as level 5 fighter, with single handed weapons and rapier with Accuracy 3 enchant on it, and the accuracy bonuses applies to knockdown ability. Makes it easier to make sure knockdown succeeds, on top of disciplined barrage.