Monk/Cipher dillema

[MaxQuest]

Have tested now it too.

 

Confirming the attack-recovery-attack-recovery-reload pattern.

The values are btw:

attack: 51-52 frames

recovery: 75 frames

reload: 100 frames

 

As for the "magazine counter" it looks like it works as follows:

- it has a value of 2; each shot decreases it by one; when it is zero, the reload will occurs.

- if you leave combat when the counter is 0 (even if before the reloading animation could finish) it will automatically reset the counter back to 2.

- if you leave combat when the counter is 1; it will not be automatically reset. (feels a bit strange)

 

 

 

Btw, that raw damage dot it leaves on hit.. made me think of possible interactions with Stasis Shell. And this what I've found:

- dot effects applied prior to shell, still do their damage. Sting's raw damage, Disintegrate, Soul Ignition...

- you can cast it on dominated party members. Than dispel the dominate. And have the best meat shield ever.

Edited March 8, 2016 by MaxQuest

[bigwillystyle]

 

Cipher: Twin Sting or Bow/Warbow?

Till this very moment, I was absolutely sure that a good Warbow is the best weapon for a ranged cipher.

Reason being: it has the highest base damage, between non-reloading stuff, and it's easy to reduce it's action time to just the attacking phase.

Simple calculations indicate that a superb warbow has potential to out-dps a blunderbuss when hitting low-DR targets, and be on par with arquebuses when hitting a 30DR 'wall'. 

 

To resume it, top weapons would be:

- against 0 DR: fast-recovery Persistence, blunderbuses | (fast as in "close to zero")

- against 10 DR: fast-recovery warbows and Stormcaller 

- against 20 DR: fast-recovery warbows reign supreme

- against 30 DR: fast-recovery warbows, Dulcanale and a good dps arquebus if there were any. (well, maybe Pliambo per Casitàs, but disorienting is weak effect for it)

Overall: it's Sabra Marie at zero recovery and high enough acc (enough to eliminate grazes). Or The Rain of Godagh Field if you could not bring Sabra Marie below 20% rec. Other worth mentioning choice is Borresaine if you are ok with sacrificing ~5%-10% of damage for it's stuns on crits.

-------

But now that it was mentioned that Twin Stings fires two shots... it can be the next best thing.

 

 

Where do you rate Cloudpiercer for a Cipher?  I have been away from the game for six months or so, but when I played last, it was awesome.  The Spell Striking effect generated focus (not sure if it still does), which was huge.

[MaxQuest]

Where do you rate Cloudpiercer for a Cipher?  I have been away from the game for six months or so, but when I played last, it was awesome.  The Spell Striking effect generated focus (not sure if it still does), which was huge.

Well, lets think. Cloudpiercer is a War Bow, so you get the highest base damage there is for a ranged, non-reloading weapon. It also has Rending. When compared to Rain of Goddagh + Pen.Shot it basically is 5 DR bypass vs 3 DR + a free talent. Pretty good. And finally it has Jolting Touch proc. So I would say it is definitely above the Rain; when you achieve zero-recovery, that's for sure. But I would still rate it below Sabra Marie. Statistics show that my cipher has crited 2637 times out of 3913 hits. Getting +0.5 damage mod. on 67% of hits is huge.

 

The only things I don't like about Cloudpiercer are:

- you have to join with the dozens

- the proc only happens once per encounter. But, if it generates focus, huh, that's a big plus.

Edited March 24, 2016 by MaxQuest

[Crucis]

 

Where do you rate Cloudpiercer for a Cipher?  I have been away from the game for six months or so, but when I played last, it was awesome.  The Spell Striking effect generated focus (not sure if it still does), which was huge.

Well, lets think. Cloudpiercer is a War Bow, so you get the highest base damage there is for a ranged, non-reloading weapon. It also has Rending. When compared to Rain of Goddagh + Pen.Shot it basically is 5 DR bypass vs 3 DR + a free talent. Pretty good. And finally it has Jolting Touch proc. So I would say it is definitely above the Rain; when you achieve zero-recovery, that's for sure. But I would still rate it below Sabra Marie. Statistics show that my cipher has crited 2637 times out of 3913 hits. Getting +0.5 damage mod. on 67% of hits is huge.

 

The only things I don't like about Cloudpiercer are:

- you have to join with the dozens

- the proc only happens once per encounter. But, if it generates focus, huh, that's a big plus.

 

 

A couple of points about Cloudpiercer to consider.

 

1. The proc only occurs once per encounter.  So, something I learned was that if you want to get the maximum benefit from that proc, do NOT use it to surprise attack a single enemy at the start of the battle, unless you know for certain that killing that single enemy won't be the start of a larger encounter, but will basically be a single grunt encounter.  Why?  Because if you crit a lone enemy at the start of the battle while his buddies aren't yet seen, you often end up (sort of) wasting the proc on that lone target, which is a little annoying when you know that the Shocking Grasp proc should zap multiple enemies.  So, unless there's a desperate need to kill a lone enemy, it may be advantageous to have the wielder of Cloudpeircer hold his fire until there are multiple enemies on screen to zap with a crit.

 

2. There's another non-cheating way to get Cloudpiercer (i.e. without joining the Dozen).  Go into the Dozen's HQ and kill their leader (and anyone else who then attacks you).  But if you do so, it's possible (don't know this for certain) that the Dozen's merchant may also go hostile on you and become inaccessible.  So, if you do intend to take Cloudpiercer this way, I suggest either making sure that you've bought everything you ever intend to from her.    Or at least make a test run (quick save prior to attacking the Dozen's leader) to check out if the Dozen's merchant actually does go hostile if you attack their leader.

 

 

Over the long haul, I don't know if CP rates above RoGF, due to the value of RoGF's speed mod.  I suspect that the speed mod may not be worth as much as CP's shocking grasp effect.

 

 

 

Side note:  For what it's worth, I've grown to really appreciate Borresaine as a warbow in my current run (in Sagani's hands).  She's able to pretty much Stun lock almost any enemy she chooses because she crits so often.  That said, it's not an effect that generates damage, which means that it wouldn't generate focus for a cipher.  Ciphers would seem to prefer weapons whose effects produce more damage and thus more focus.

Edited March 24, 2016 by Crucis

[KDubya]

Prior to this latest patch I went into the Dozen's HQ to unlock the soulbound Mace that needs some number of human deaths. As Devil slaughtered the entire building the merchants decided to join in as well and died like their buddies. Make sure you do all shopping before starting the massacre.

[Crucis]

Prior to this latest patch I went into the Dozen's HQ to unlock the soulbound Mace that needs some number of human deaths. As Devil slaughtered the entire building the merchants decided to join in as well and died like their buddies. Make sure you do all shopping before starting the massacre.

 

Gotta say that I'm sorely tempted to dish out a little justice to the Dozen's myself.  But I'm aligned with the Crucible Knights, so ... so .... so, what the heck.  It's not like my PC is a goody-goody Kind Wayfarer or Shieldbearer.  He's "just" an Aumaua fighter looking to find Thaos and smack him around a bit.   That said, he could always use a little "smacking around" practice and those meeeeeeeeeeeean Dozens thugs look like they need it.

 

What was it that Minsc would say?  Butt-kicking for goodness!!!

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ePJYbkSykg

[Teioh_White]

I generally prefer Rains for my Cipher over Cloud, but it depends on how you're doling out gear. Getting to 0 recovery, like haste in all games, gets you increasing returns the closer you get to that value. Pillars doubles up on this by also making each additional piece of Speed giving a bonus multiplied by the previous gear, in a really poorly thought out idea by the Devs. So, while in a vacuum, going from 120%->100% recovery with Pen.Shots on isn't that big a deal, going from 48%-> 13% with just the Speed from Rains is really nice. (The first instance is like a 12%~ boost in attack speed, the second is closer to 50%, just showing how 20% less recovery varies in value based on your set up)

 

Of course, With Time Parasite, Gloves, and Steel, even Cloud Piercer can almost get rid of recovery, and only be down 2 DR but with one talent in the bag, plus the one shot Jolting Proc (which gets less value as well the later the game goes on and the fights get larger). There's a limited amount of Steel in the game, clearly, and depending on how much you game the system, you'll have a limited number of haste gloves, as well as the limited Dragon eyes the CloudPiercer forces you to use.

 

For me, I don't like to dedicate so much limited resources to essentially just save a talent point, so I take the much less low impact Rains, and dole out the Eyes and Haste Gauntlets elsewhere.

Edited March 25, 2016 by Teioh_White

[bigwillystyle]

Well, I can confirm Cloudpiercer doesn't generate focus on Jolting Touch, so ... eh.   Time to Blunderbuss!

[Crucis]

Well, I can confirm Cloudpiercer doesn't generate focus on Jolting Touch, so ... eh.   Time to Blunderbuss!

 

Darn.  Well, all the more reason why a very straight forward warbow like Rain is better for Ciphers.

 

As for ciphers and guns, I found that guns were a bit annoying for ciphers because their reload rate is soooo slow that if you miss, it takes a lot longer to fire again.  Of course, if you do connect, you get your focus in larger bursts, so there is that.  I guess I'm just more comfortable using higher RoF weapons with a steadier, if somewhat lower, increase of focus where misses aren't so painful.  But to each his own.

[Ichthyic]

I think this changed in either 3.01 or 3.02, but nothing that procs damage on crit hit will generate focus any more.  tested with every weapon I have on my cipher.

just fyi.

also, weapons that DOT do not generate any extra focus, just like the DOT from envenomed strike doesn't.

really... blunderbus is still by far the best weapon type to generate burst focus for ranged cipher.  I've never needed to switch to a warbow to generate focus... ever.

just go armsmaster, quickswitch, and use the Coil of Resourcefulness belt... and you get zero switch times, no matter what time in your cooldowns you swap (aside from doing the immediate swap as soon as you fire, which I often take advantage to cast a spell at zero recovery speed instead).

switch to pistols for things with DR over 20 (because with leadspitter, ryona's, penetrating shot... you already have base 15 damage penetration).  melee is still best with resolution/stilleto combo, or resolution/purgatory/bittercut, depending on what kind of damage you want to do).  Scon's roar outperforms leadspitter on anything that has less than 15 DR.  My combat routinely is: Cast phantom foes, shoot with Scon's, cast amp wave... shoot with leadspitter, then the time machine or another amp wave, then... whatever needs mopping up if the fight is not already over by then.  I so rarely actually use anything else, even though there are plenty of great powers.  it's just... these things allow for near complete battlefield control (for anything not completely immune to prone, anyway).

pretty much, I only have ever bothered using pistols against dragons.

oh, and dulcanele outperforms fellstroke, every time.

I think the ambush feature from fellstroke is not working correctly, or it would at least outperform dulcanele on regular flanking attacks.


that said, this is a party build... if I was soloing my cipher, then yeah... warbow would definitely feature in a third slot.



 

Edited April 4, 2016 by Ichthyic

[Blunderboss]

I use Fellstroke to open with my melee rogue from stealth ( after the combat starts ) wait for my party to debuf enemies for deathblows with Phantom Foes and some other spell like Interdiction and then shooting Fellstroke from stealth ( Backstab , Sneak Attack , Death Blows , Ambushing )always results in one hit one kill scenario on a lesser enemy, and then i can go safely to melee because enemies are already engaged/blocking each other

Edited April 4, 2016 by Blunderboss