Melee Cypher build

[GawainBS]

This brings up something else: how on earth am I ever going to reach 30 in a stat?

[Loren Tyr]

Well, start off a character with 20 INT, +2 item bonus, +3 Stronghold Forum resting bonus, +2 Salty Mast prostitute bonus, +2 from tasty, tasty Casserole, that gets you to 29 already. And that's available more or less from the beginning of Act 2. There's various other options of course. Keeping up the resting/whoring bonuses all the time can be a hassle (especially if you don't want to keep schlepping back and forth to the Salty Mast), but getting a consistent >25 INT pre-combat is very straightforward. Some stats are easier than others of course, for example you can get 29 RES as soon as you grab Durance (or have another lvl 3 priest), though that does require some spellcasting. 

Edited June 4, 2016 by Loren Tyr

[tazoall]

I played in PotD difficulty with main melee cypher.

I think the best weapon to generate focus is the sword of the endless path which have x 1.2 speed.

With the 1.5speed buff which can be obtained at LV13, you can reach 0 recovery with durgan forged weapon/ plate armor / quickness glove.

Or the potion to buff speed is also possible before Lv13.

 

Of course dual hand durgan forged sabre also can reach 0 recovery but two hand give more damage.

[mellowroot]

Boeroer, what would the stats look like on your sabre cipher build? Maxquest's cc cipher stats look good, but would just having 10 might hamstring this build?

[Boeroer]

I don't think so. Ciphers can get +40% damage bonus with Soul Whip alone. Add +20% from Savage Attack and you're doing good damage without any might bonus.

You can also put on an item with flanking bonus (stalking boots or whatever) and concentrate your skill points on survival: +damage vs. flanked targets. Then abuse Phantom Foes: I think you can stack a bonus against flanked of +55%: +10% from the item, +30% from camping bonuses, +15% from Apprentice's Sneak Attack. All in all that's +95% bonus damage. +20% against flanked with survival is more realistic though and can be achieved quite early. So I'd say +85%

 

MIG doesn't play that major role here, so it's ok to leave it at 10. More PER will be more effective than more MIG. It will let you crit more often (also with spells). 

 

But if you want to take a more tanky path and trade a little bit dps for a lot more survivability, I'd take Veteran's Recovery, max MIG and INT and go for 14 survival in order to receive +60% healing - plus a belt of bountiful healing. With 20 MIG and that your regeneration will get buffed by +115%, meaning it will be more than twice as strong. Great in combination with any Potion of Regeneration. Your self heals will be very powerful then. This way you can even wear thinner armor and still survive most melee situations without retreating at all. It's easier to play since you don't have to watch out so much and you don't have to reposition yourself all the time.

 

Then you can of course dump RES and CON and max nearly everything except DEX (which will be around 16) and have a perfect glass cannon. This will provide the highest dps and it even still works with Veteran's Recovery as decribed above, but your health and interrupts will be a problem - so you'd have to watch out like a hawk: getting surrounded means instant KO, eating disengagement attacks can be your end. But if you have a good frontline and manage to disable your current target all the time with Mental Binding and stuff it's also doable.

 

I personally would go the second way, but that's just me. The first approach feels mor like a rogue and might also be a lot of fun to play if you're a bit more cautious.

[Kingsman]

I don't think so. Ciphers can get +40% damage bonus with Soul Whip alone. Add +20% from Savage Attack and you're doing good damage without any might bonus.

You can also put on an item with flanking bonus (stalking boots or whatever) and concentrate your skill points on survival: +damage vs. flanked targets. Then abuse Phantom Foes: I think you can stack a bonus against flanked of +55%: +10% from the item, +30% from camping bonuses, +15% from Apprentice's Sneak Attack. All in all that's +95% bonus damage. +20% against flanked with survival is more realistic though and can be achieved quite early. So I'd say +85%

 

MIG doesn't play that major role here, so it's ok to leave it at 10. More PER will be more effective than more MIG. It will let you crit more often (also with spells). 

 

But if you want to take a more tanky path and trade a little bit dps for a lot more survivability, I'd take Veteran's Recovery, max MIG and INT and go for 14 survival in order to receive +60% healing - plus a belt of bountiful healing. With 20 MIG and that your regeneration will get buffed by +115%, meaning it will be more than twice as strong. Great in combination with any Potion of Regeneration. Your self heals will be very powerful then. This way you can even wear thinner armor and still survive most melee situations without retreating at all. It's easier to play since you don't have to watch out so much and you don't have to reposition yourself all the time.

 

Then you can of course dump RES and CON and max nearly everything except DEX (which will be around 16) and have a perfect glass cannon. This will provide the highest dps and it even still works with Veteran's Recovery as decribed above, but your health and interrupts will be a problem - so you'd have to watch out like a hawk: getting surrounded means instant KO, eating disengagement attacks can be your end. But if you have a good frontline and manage to disable your current target all the time with Mental Binding and stuff it's also doable.

 

I personally would go the second way, but that's just me. The first approach feels mor like a rogue and might also be a lot of fun to play if you're a bit more cautious.

It depends which difficulty he is playing on. If he is playing on hard he should raise intelligence and dexterity. If he is playing on POTD he should raise intelligence and perception as the bad guys have increased stats and that extra perception helps. No stats should be dumped on POTD either.

[MaxQuest]

Boeroer, what would the stats look like on your sabre cipher build? Maxquest's cc cipher stats look good, but would just having 10 might hamstring this build?

What build are you referring to? And what sabres do you intend to use (Resolution, Purgatory, Bittercut all 3 favor different stat spreads).

 

But if you want to take a more tanky path and trade a little bit dps for a lot more survivability, I'd take Veteran's Recovery, max MIG and INT and go for 14 survival in order to receive +60% healing - plus a belt of bountiful healing. With 20 MIG and that your regeneration will get buffed by +115%, meaning it will be more than twice as strong.

[...] 

Then you can of course dump RES and CON and max nearly everything except DEX

But on the other hand, with maxed MIG, and lower DEX it will no longer be a cc-cipher, which I've got the impression mellowroot is looking for.

 

Btw, how well does dumped CON + focus on healing goes well for you? In my experience there is a trouble in running out health. And you kinda have to resort on cc. And if you do, Shod-in-faith proc from an adjacent party member is usually enough to keep your endurance on top most of the time. (e.g. I have a barb with maxed mig/int for that). Don't get me wrong, I love healing bonuses (with high health pools through..).

Edited June 27, 2016 by MaxQuest

[Boeroer]

Dex is the least important stat for a dual wielder - but for casting I still wouldn't dump it completely.

 

Low CON + healing can prevent you from going down in a fight, but you will have to rest more often because of health, that's true. As I said I would go the second way I mentioned above and don't dump CON. You can do with a bit lower PER if you use you first power to paralyze or prone you target. Very high RES is also not needed. That's enough spare points to max out MIG and INT without dumping any stat.

Edited June 27, 2016 by Boeroer

[MaxQuest]

Dex is the least important stat for a dual wielder - but for casting I still wouldn't dump it completely.

Exactly.

Also there is the thing that most used cc-oriented powers do tend to have low focus cost, so they will be invoked quite a lot (in comparison to a dps cipher who capitalizes on costlier detonates, screams and waves). So casting speed is important.

Another pro of casting speed is: if you are fast enough, you can preemptively disable an enemy spellcaster that started invoking a spell, before he will finish casting.

 

You can do with a bit lower PER if you use you first power to paralyze or prone you target.

I will come again with advocating double-ciphers

A cc-one with high Per/Int/Dex prones or paralyzes, while another one get's away with lower Per/Dex but has higher Might and builds around Bittercuts.

 

As I said I would go the second way I mentioned above and don't dump CON. Very high RES is also not needed. That's enough spare points to max out MIG and INT without dumping any stat.

Yeah, dumped Con is annoying in terms of resting. 10 feels solid. 8-9 in practice turned also ok (but that's mostly due to extra DR from pale elf). Deflection felt irrelevant and I didn't dump Res entirely, only due to concentration (somewhere around 7-8 res was enough). Edited June 27, 2016 by MaxQuest

[Boeroer]

I agree to all of that.

 

I made a dual cipher build - because the cipher's buffs (that he can't cast on himself) are awesome on a cipher.

 

The reaping knifes trick with dual ciphers is enough reason to take two of them. You get +100% focus that way.

[Dr <3]

The fact that the chiper can't cast buff on himself will never make sense to me

[Elric Galad]

Wait... The "Chiper" ?

 

Aj

Ah

Ah

[StormOwnz]

What would a dual wield bittercut build path be if you want him to top the dmg charts?

[Boeroer]

If you want him to top the dmg charts you need to give him Unforgiven + Starcaller or Sword if Daenysis + March Steel Dagger.

 

Dual Bittercut is nice and the best option for any Full Attack ability such as Flames of Devotion or Heart of Fury, but it's worse than the above without some Full Attack abilities - which the cipher doesn't have.

 

Besides that, if you'd still want to use Bittercut you'd want to take Weapon Focus Ruffian, Two Weapon Style, Biting Whip, Draining Whip, Spirit of Decay, Savage Attack and Apprentice's Sneak Attack.

Edited December 15, 2017 by Boeroer

[Raven Darkholme]

If you want him to top the dmg charts you need to give him Unforgiven + Starcaller or Sword if Daenysis + March Steel Dagger.

 

Dual Bittercut is nice and the best option for any Full Attack ability such as Flames of Devotion or Heart of Fury, but it's worse than the above without some Full Attack abilities - which the cipher doesn't have.

 

Besides that, if you'd still want to use Bittercut you'd want to take Weapon Focus Ruffian, Two Weapon Style, Biting Whip, Draining Whip, Spirit of Decay, Savage Attack and Apprentice's Sneak Attack.

So this post had me thinking for quite a while, since I sold my Unforgiven when I got Bittercut on my solo PotD cipher and

a) couldn't remember where I sold it

b) didn't play my cipher for over a month due to playing Path of Exile.

 

Today i finally urged myself to search all merchants for my Unforgiven and respecced into a build with Scion of Flame.

I was mighty diasappointed in Unforgiven.

The 10% damage lash is useless even with a 32 Might cipher it only ever procs on lucky crits (and by that I mean if your crit has low damage it will not even proc on crit, given your target has a meager and super common DR of 12) since it doesn't roll vs DR together with the regular lash, but instead rolls separately.

Even if it procs most of the time you won't get much more than 1 damage of it.

An average hit with Unforgiven does 20ish damage an average GRAZE with Bittercut and Spirit of Decay, otherwise same build does 40ish damage.

Fully durganized and a little over 10 dex (8 base 13 without food) plus Time parasite/Alacrity both Unforgiven and Bittercut don't have recovery even with a shield and no two weapon style, ofc the animaton of Unforgiven will be faster, but it effectively does less than half damage per swing and Bittercut has the massive advantage of rolling vs two different DRs.

[Boeroer]

Well, if you do the math then Unforgiven is the winner over Bittercut because it's still a lot faster (like nearly twice the attack speed) even if they both have 0 recovery. You can also reach 0 recovery a lot easier - and it's also easy to use Vulnerable Attack without any speed loss. And every flat DR bypass effect like Ryona's Vambraces and stuff is so much better with higher attack speed (because it's not a percentage based bonus but flat damage that gets added).

 

If you want to fully utilize the additional lash you have to use Body Attunement or some other means of DR reduction (not bypass) though.

 

I also prefer Bittercut, especially because of the two damage types - but "on paper" Unforgiven should deal higher dps against most enemies as soon as you have decent dmg mods (and if you don't face crush resistant or immune foes of course).

[Raven Darkholme]

Nearly twice the attack speed doesn't make up for less than half damage.

On paper it might be better but in practice mediocre DR screws Unforgiven, let alone higher DR foes which make it completely worthless.