Help Designing a Melee Cipher Build

[QuiteGoneJin]

Yep, not just you, you can see its range somehow, i think by hovering over the power, then you kinda gotta guess. 

[Blades of Vanatar]

You make the mistake of assuming I haven't respeced or restarted

 

Also that Warhammer was just the weapon my Cipher started with. As far as I could tell, none of the Cipher cultures start with a sabre and Heodan doesn't sell one, so the earliest you can get one is by stealing Edér's or buying one from the shop in GV.

 

I have picked up a sabre in the Valewood. There are some random items in the bandit camp where you save the dwarven cook. I haven' figured out how it correlates to your MC, if it does at all, or if it is totally

Random.

[JerekKruger]

I have picked up a sabre in the Valewood. There are some random items in the bandit camp where you save the dwarven cook. I haven' figured out how it correlates to your MC, if it does at all, or if it is totally

Random.

 

Huh, all I found were vegetables I think. Might it have been in the bear cave? I think the hidden cache there has a weapon (I forget what since by the time I fought the bear I had Edér and Aloth in my party (yes, I am a filthy casual who doesn't even solo the bear cave  )

[Boeroer]

The AoE indicator for Mind Wave got messed up in one of the later patches, maybe 3.something. Before that is was centered on the enemy you picked as your target. Don't know why it broke. Maybe because there's this secret design philosophy of OBS that, when they introduce some new features with a patch, they also have to introduce some new bugs as well. It's called balancing...

[JerekKruger]

Oh well, I suspect it will never get fixed but we can hope.

 

I did restart by the way. Went with 18/8/10/16/18/8. Spellcasting is, unsurprisingly, a lot slower, but my damage is up a fair amount allowing me to cast spells more than once a decade. Perhaps when I get to a higher level I'll consider changing my attributes again.

 

I just fought the Forest Lurkers near the Shrine of Galawain in Black Meadow. Five man party (Me, Edér, Kana, Durance and Aloth), all level 3, got down to one Forest Lurker at "near death" and Aloth and so I ran around in circles taking the occasional potshot with his sceptre and it eventually died.

 

I swear they didn't used to be immune to paralysis. In earlier play-throughs Mental Binding was always the key to beating them. Has that changed?

[Elric Galad]

Well, in the very beginning nothing was immune to nothing.

 

And as far as I can remember, they have been immune. So at least six months. I don't remember this being different.

[Boeroer]

Forest Lurkers at lvl 3 are tough. Huge endurance pool, rel. high DR and good defenses and acc. And they hit hard and cause stuck on hit.

[Blades of Vanatar]

Forest Lurkers at lvl 3 are tough. Huge endurance pool, rel. high DR and good defenses and acc. And they hit hard and cause stuck on hit.

In my first couple playthroughs before fully grasping the game mechanics I absolutely dreaded forest lurkers. It was always game over once I engaged. Now their gravy, even at lvl 3-4.

Edited January 10, 2017 by Blades of Vanatar

[JerekKruger]

Forest Lurkers at lvl 3 are tough. Huge endurance pool, rel. high DR and good defenses and acc. And they hit hard and cause stuck on hit.

 

That's why I refuse to wait before fighting them. Got to show them who's boss 

 

In my first couple playthroughs before fully grasping the game mechanics I absolutely dreaded forest lurkers. It was always game over once I engaged. Now their gravy, even at lvl 3-4.

 

In my first full playthrough, with a melee Cipher on normal, that was the first fight that really caused my trouble. This is why I was surprised that they were immune to paralyse since I am sure that's how I eventually beat them (Mental Binding).

 

I battered my way through Caed Nua shortly after beating them. I almost managed to clear the courtyard in one rest, but had to camp for the final largish fight near Brighthollow. Then I beat two spirit fights inside the keep itself but was forced to retreat to Gilded Vale before fighting Maewald since Edér had three injuries and was on 1 health 

 

After that I did all the easy fetch quests in Gilded Vale and am about to do the Temple of Eothas.

[KDubya]

Those Forest Lurkers are one of the reasons that I usually use Boreal Dwarves for everything. The innate +15 accuracy against them and many other early tough enemies makes a huge difference in the early game which is the most difficult portion of the game.

[JerekKruger]

Yeah, I'm a Boreal Dwarf this time round and their racial is really noticeable. Against the Skuldrs in Eothas's Temple I was critting all the time. I even managed to crit charm the first Skuldr king you meet and he proceeded to tank all the other Skuldr in the room until he died and one wounded Skuldr remained.

[Boeroer]

The best racial feat in my opinion.

 

And if you have 1 talent to spare and wear the Bartender's Ring, you can take Beast Slayer and enchant your weapons with kith-slaying. Then you have a char who either has higher ACC or higher damage against every creature there is.

[Dr <3]

I always underrated it since i considered wilder and primordial the weakest types of enemies ( while Beast and spirits the most thoug ones).

But i recently changed my opinion after a run with a solo dwarf druid: in the beginning of the game it helps immensly with a vast majority of minor encounter, in wich with +15 acc you waste far less resources (spells). Also in late game +15 acc is always very useful, free scroll of valor!

[JerekKruger]

Just got Resolution and Persistence (and Llawren's Stick of course). Party was level 5 and the fight against the Greater Black Ooze was no joke.

 

Also of interest was the fact that I actually found the Xaurip floor pretty hard, but then the few Ogre fights I did were surprisingly easy. It turns out that the combination of Whisper of Treason and Mental Binding make a party with a Cipher really good in fights against a few, tougher enemies, but being swarmed by lots of weaker enemies is a lot harder.

 

EDIT: oh yeah, quick question: I picked up a Ring of Searing Flames, does the damage caused by Burning Wounds build Focus?

Edited January 11, 2017 by JerekKruger

[Boeroer]

Nope. But it works great with beams and Pain Link. If you have a barb in the party then don't throw it away: one of the best items with HoF.

Edited January 11, 2017 by Boeroer

[JerekKruger]

Huh, looks like the Gloves of Manipulation have been removed from the loot pool for the little chest in Raedric's Keep. I wonder where they are now...

[Livegood118]

Just curious - have you tried quickswitching Arquebuses with the build? I feel like this would be a fairly effective way of getting much needed focus.

[JerekKruger]

Just curious - have you tried quickswitching Arquebuses with the build? I feel like this would be a fairly effective way of getting much needed focus.

 

Not yet, though it's something I've been considering. I am still only level 5 so I don't (think) I would have the requisite talent points required to do so at the moment.

[Elric Galad]

I always underrated it since i considered wilder and primordial the weakest types of enemies ( while Beast and spirits the most thoug ones).

But i recently changed my opinion after a run with a solo dwarf druid: in the beginning of the game it helps immensly with a vast majority of minor encounter, in wich with +15 acc you waste far less resources (spells). Also in late game +15 acc is always very useful, free scroll of valor!

 

Well, even if spirits are annoying early games (mostly because they come in great number), and late-game groups with lots banshees are quite strong, I don't find spirit that much annoying.

 

Vessels are meh except fampyr (rarely more than one at a time) and Concelhaut servants.

 

Beast are mostly meh. Seriously, animals rarely worth magic beasts, and they have low crowd control abilities. Only dragons worth something, and that's very late game where you're likely to have either anti-beast chant or armor.

 

Kiths... are quite diverse. But Thaos, Llengrath, fallen moon temple monks and most bounties are kiths. Many hard encounters against them. Anti-kith equipments are rare and worth a lot of enchanting, so I suppose they are supposed to be much more frequent.

 

 

Mid-game to late-game, a crapload of annoying ennemies are from either wilder or primordial types.

Adragans, ogre druid, lagufaeth, vithrack, mushrooms. A lot of them with strong AoE damages or CC effects.

Some WM II Bosses like kraken and radiant spore are primordial too.

So yes, Boreal Dwarf is really an interesting race now.

 

Side-note: Pwgra deserves a special mention since infestation of maggots has finally be debugged (no pun intended)...

Edited January 11, 2017 by Elric Galad

[JerekKruger]

Huh, looks like the Gloves of Manipulation have been removed from the loot pool for the little chest in Raedric's Keep. I wonder where they are now...

 

For anyone who's interested, I found a pair in the Copperlane Catacombs on day 8.

[JerekKruger]

Well, after a somewhat bumpy start my melee Cipher is going strong. He hasn't been knocked unconscious in quite a while now, does good damage, and his powers are very... powerful. I'm only part way through Act II, so he's yet to fight anything tough like Dragons but once I'm done I'll post up a build (unless Elric wants to post his, I think they're probably pretty similar and we don't really need two melee cipher builds in the archive).

 

I intend to, for the first time, unscale everything, so I'm waiting till level 9 before going to the White March. It will be interesting to see how this goes.

[IamNOOB]

Today I just started to use the Grieving mother as a melee cipher but more focused on disabling, I got a barbarian main character and a paladin in the front line. Durance and Aloth stay back and cast spells. I rotate the last hero - sometimes it is the rauatai chanter , sometimes it is the Hunter [to unlock doors] or sometimes it is Eder... Seems to me it is OK to have a melee cipher and it niceto have a shield. Sometimes I switch to a blunderbus, then go sword+shield again. By far the cipher seems to be the most interesting class, overpowered even. No wonder people dont want to create a simple warrior as a main character. Ciphers seems to adored

[Boeroer]

They are good at dealing damage with a weapon and at casting spells. This makes them attractive I guess. For me, the best part of the cipher are his mind control spells. Those can trivialize even the hardest encounters if you have somebody who can raise your ACC high enough (priest and/or paladin).

 

A fighter can also be good - if you play him as a disruptor who quickly kills casters behind the enemy lines he can be very effective and also a lot of fun. He can both be hard to kill and deal a lot of single target damage and CC.

Edited January 14, 2017 by Boeroer

[QuiteGoneJin]

So what did you end up keeping as your starting build, how far did you get and what were the results?

[JerekKruger]

At the moment I've gone with 18/8/10/16/18/8 for my base attributes, Boreal Dwarf for my race. I'm only level 7, still in Defiance Bay, as I haven't had all that much time to play (I find I need a good couple of hours to really do anything in PoE). I took Biting Whip, Weapon Focus, Draining Whip in that order (felt I needed the accuracy early on). Powers wise I went

 

1: Mind Wave, Anitpathetic Field, Whispers of Treason.

2: Mental Binding, Pyschovampiric Shield, <wild card>.

3: Ectopyschic Echo, Pain Link, <wild card>.

4: Body Attunement, Silent Scream.

 

Wild cards just mean that I've experimented with a few powers in this slot.

 

After starting a little weak, this character quickly became pretty powerful. His single target CC is amazing, making fights against a small number of tough foes much easier. Also, with a small shield he rarely gets targetted in melee so long as I let him engage after the main tanks. Obviously no idea how he'll far against the toughest fights in the game yet, but it's pretty clear that he's viable. That said, I tend to think that a ranged Cipher would still be better in a lot of cases (can make stats more extreme, can more reliably do damage in tight confines, some spell targeting is easier as ranged etc.). I suspect once Mind Web appears though this changes since you then become as tanky as your main tank.