Cipher Weapons

[AlexKidd]

Bunch of usefull nerd stuff

Hello. All the PoE2 hype made me pick up this game again and this discussion reminded me to mod and give consistency to these double damage type weapons. If I wished to make all these weapons act as elemental(1st)/phisical(2nd) to better benefit from Spirit of # feats (and probably a reverse option to nerf them all once I realize they're OP ), what's left to 'fix' other than Durance's Staff?

 

 

 

 

Also, any thought about the strenght of the greatsword Justice (that I am thinking to just mod to deal bludge/slash instead of pierce/slash)? I am not sure how the +10%+25% bludge dmg is applied, and if it's useful against high DR foes.

[Boeroer]

Hi. Nice mod.

 

The things I know of that have the "wrong" order of damage types are Curoc's Brand, Durance's Staff as well as Prestidigitator's and Minor Missiles (crush/corrode). Can't say if there are more though. Torches maybe?

 

I really dislike it that Durance's Staff is crush/burn instead of burn/crush. There aren't a lot of nice staffs in the game anyway and this would make quarterstaffs a bit more interesting.

 

About Justice: it has two crushing lashes as far as I can tell from testing. The 10% lash will often be eaten up by DR and you don't see it then in the log. But if you have somebody with high dmg mods and crit potential like a rogue or a cipher for example, you can witness it quite often. 10% lash is really weak though. In order to get past 12 crush DR you'd have to deal 35 pierce or slash with your initial roll - and then only 1 point of the 10% crushing lash would make it through while the 25% lash will deal 6. So - it's great against foes with low DR (esp. crush) and bad against high DR.

 

Torches have the same mechanic, but with a burning "mini" lash. You can put another lash on them and then they also have two lashes. Due to the lower base damage of torches the mini lash gets eaten up by DR most of the time.

 

Here one can see why single higher lashes are much better than multiple lower ones. And why it can be better to take Scion of Flame only in order to boost a burning lash on your weapon from 25 to 30% rather than having a 10% + 25% lash - and also better than to take Savage Attack or Apprentice's Sneak Attack or other low base-damage mods in some cases.

Edited April 14, 2017 by Boeroer

[AlexKidd]

Ugh two mini lashes I totally forgot about torches, and how badass is Calisca fighting with them Shame there's no unique one nor enemies fighting with them (I think) or I'd feel compelled to make them burn/bludge as well.

In order to make this semi-relevant to the cipher topic... there's no MIN dmg for lashes right?

So stuff with a 10% lash (thinking about Starcaller and Unforgiven flails - btw, both 10% fire? boooring) is only useful against very low DR (but then, pretty much everything works, and a blunderbuss works best) even with all soul whip mods. I was thinking flails with graze->hit conversion would have been an ok option in potd when you're done milking the fodder for focus with your estoc (wf: adventurer) and it's only bosses with high stats left.

Edited April 14, 2017 by AlexKidd

[MasterCipher]

After learning about the curoc wand shortcoming, I'm finally on team Bittercut - plus I couldn't fit all the enchantments I wanted on any ranged weapons. But if you want to go ranged, I'd recommend Stormcaller.

 

This is a mix/max damage/focus/control/buff build that unabashedly taps into Cipher OP potential.

 

Human

 

MIG 20

DEX 18

CON 3*

INT 18

PER 15

RES 4

 

*Yes, even on a padded wearing melee because you should be meleeing from the outside of your tank and disable before destroy. Nonetheless, priest & druid can AoE buff stack +12 DR every encounter, so with the gear below you can hit 30 DR vs slash. Also, you can give your chanter field triage and lastly, there's 2 CON food a +5% endurance talent for MC 2 MIG/CON brothel buddy. While there's only a 1 in 6 chance, wild leech can give you +10 CON.

 

focus whip

damage whip

20% corrode talent

duel wield

apprentice sneak attack

vulnerable attack

savage attack

 

10 focus: confuse (abusive way to start fights), charm, mindwave, eyestrike, antipathic beam (good damage in its own right, but also increases other beam damage)

20 focus: mental binding, phantom enemies, recall agony (awesome on paper, but mostly just for bosses because everything dies too quickly)

30 focus: ectopsychic crush (supremely lethal) , pain link

40 focus: pain block, stun + raw AoE damage (bread and butter), wild leech (I think you can still cast on your own party summons and have them watch from behind), mind lance (quick finisher), go between

50 focus: tactical meld, detonate (very high AoE crush damage on explode - not sure if explosion still gives you focus back), borrowed instinct

60 focus: mind plague, amplified wave

70 focus: time parasite (you already hit 0 recovery with Outlander's frenzy but this is good when it when that wears off), stasis

80 focus: reaver blades (put this on your barbarian and you can't spend focus fast enough), defensive mindweb (an I win button)

 

x2 Bittercut legendary with corrosion lash/Twinsting

2 PER, 0.1 flank damage padded armor with retaliate

3 MIG helm with retaliation

2 INT focus neck

3 DR bypass, 5 DR v slash, and 5% miss to graze conversion gloves

1.8 movement when health above 75% and +21 interrupt when below belt

ring with the 1 use per stronghold turn buff and passive overseer

3 DEX 5 reflex 20 def v stun+prone ring

beam proc boots 1/encounter when crit

 

If MC: donate Devil to the blood pool, 0.3 crit faction talent, 1 MIG boon talent, 3 MIG stronghold rest, 2 MIG + 2 CON brothel buddy, 1 PER quest talent, 1 PER + 1 INT + 1 RES quest talent, 0.1 crit quest talent

Edited April 14, 2017 by MasterCipher

[dgray62]

I'm personally not comfortable with MIN/MAX builds. If one doesn't drop CON and RES so much, how does the following stat spread look for a melee cipher?

 

MIG 18

CON 8

DEX 16

PER 10

INT 18

RES 8

 

I usually play on hard difficulty, so I don't think I need PER about 10. Any suggestions would be most welcome.

[Boeroer]

Right: lashes have no MIN damage and will deal zero damage if 1/4 of the corresponding DR is too high.

 

DR bypass is ignored by lashes. So Penetrating Shot or Vulnerable Attacks Ryona's Vambraces and also rending don't do anything for your lashes (this is why blunderbusses with lashes are bad even if you stacked a lot of DR bypass).

 

If you can lower enemies' DR directly (Stormcaller, Expose Vuln., Hel-Hyraf, Sever the Soul, Body Attunement and so on) this is the best way to get focus out of lashes. With this "trick" it's also possible to get good focus out of Justice's double lash.

 

Because elemental lashes do generate focus. The crushing ones also do. Wounding however does not. It works like a lash when it comes to appliance, but it's a DoT effect. Those never generate focus.

 

@dgray: stats look fine. If you're about to use more CC/disable a than damaging powers then I would put more points into PER and less into MIG. If you want to use Veteran's Recovery then keep high MIG.

Edited April 14, 2017 by Boeroer

[MasterCipher]

Is all elemental weapon damage considered a lash? Is the base damage of Bittercut's corrode/slash considered a lash too, or just the 25% weapon enchantment, chanter chant, and Flames of Devotion? If so, vulnerable attack won't make much sense for me, since I don't get hit enough for retaliate focus.

[Boeroer]

Retaliation doesn't generate focus anymore.

 

Bittercut's base damage is not a lash. It's the usual, direct damage.

 

Lashes are:

- Wildstrike

- Greater Wildstrike

- Wildstrike Belt

- enchantment lashes on weapons (burning lash etc. also crushing lash)

- Flames of Devotion

- Intense Flames

- Remember Rhakan Field

- Turning Wheel

- Torment's Reach (+50% crushing lash on initial target)

- Lightning Strikes

- Myth Fyr chant

- Blood Testament gloves

 

and maybe Recall Agony (not sure, but I saw some strange behaviour around focus generation when using this). Maybe I forgot something else.

 

Vulnerable Attack for cipher makes sense if you are using weapons with low damage per hit. Usually those weapons are relatively fast (except blunderbuss and Golden Gaze). For other setups it's not too useful most of the time.

Edited April 14, 2017 by Boeroer

[MasterCipher]

Thank you Boeroer. I feel like I need a tutorial in lashes. The negative is that there is no minimum damage so they can be totally reduced to 0 by DR. However, I vaguely recall strength and damage modifiers somehow benefit them more than base weapon damage.

[Livegood118]

Thank you Boeroer. I feel like I need a tutorial in lashes. The negative is that there is no minimum damage so they can be totally reduced to 0 by DR. However, I vaguely recall strength and damage modifiers somehow benefit them more than base weapon damage.

 

It's a combination of both. What you want to aim for when using lashes is as much damage before DR is taken in to account as you can get.

 

So let's say you had a Monk with 10 wounds using Torment's reach with Turning Wheel, Lightning Strikes, a Weapon Lash and Scion of Flame + Heart of the Storm using a sabre with a 100% damage modifier:

 

11 – 16 * 2 = 22 – 32, average hit = 27

Unmodified damage before DR = 27

TR = 27*0.5 vs .25 DR = 13.5 vs 0 DR

TW = 27.5*0.6 vs .25 DR = 16.5 vs 0 DR

LS = 27.5*0.3 vs .25 DR = 8.25 vs 0 DR

WL = 27.5*0.3 vs .25 DR = 8.25 vs 0 DR

= 73.5 damage vs 0 DR

vs other DR = 73.5 - DR2

@10 DR = 73.5 - 20 = 53.5

@20 DR = 73.5 - 40 = 33.5

 

Now, let's take a more optimised example of a Monk with the same skills/talents set-up but damage mod 24% (Base Might) + 24% (extra might) + 15% (Apprentice Sneak) + .45% (Superb) +.2 (Sabre) +.2 (Savage Attack) = 1.48, who lands a Crit with an annihilating durganised sabre with the Doemenel talent

 

11 – 16 * 2.48 = 27 – 40, Average Hit = 33.5

Crit Mod = 0.5 (Base) + 0.5 (Annihilating) + 0.3 (Durgan) + 0.3 (Doemenel Talent) = 1.6

11 – 16 * 1.6 = 17.6 – 25.6, average from crit  = 21.6

Unmodified damage before DR = 33.5 + 21.6 = 55

TR = 55*0.5 vs .25 DR = 22.5 vs 0 DR

TW = 55*0.6 vs .25 DR = 33 vs 0 DR

LS = 55*0.3 vs .25 DR = 16.5 vs 0 DR

WL = 55*0.3 vs .25 DR = 16.5 vs 0 DR

= 143.5 damage vs 0 DR

vs other DR = 143.5 - DR2

@10 DR = 143.5 - 20 = 122.5

@20 DR = 143.5 - 40 = 103.5

@30 DR = 143.5 - 60 = 83.5

 

– The higher your modified damage before DR, the stronger your lashes will be (crits get factored in to this)

– Lashes can indeed get eaten by DR

– All lashes (other than wounding or other sources of raw lashes which work against 0 DR) work against .25 DR, meaning you get more bang for your buck vs DR when your lash% is greater than .25 

– Investment in elemental talents (e.g. Heart of the Storm) will increase the corresponding damage of lashes, such that a .25 lash becomes a .3 lash and a .5 lash becomes a .6 lash

Edited April 15, 2017 by Livegood118

[firkraag888]

After learning about the curoc wand shortcoming, I'm finally on team Bittercut - plus I couldn't fit all the enchantments I wanted on any ranged weapons. But if you want to go ranged, I'd recommend Stormcaller.

 

This is a mix/max damage/focus/control/buff build that unabashedly taps into Cipher OP potential.

 

Human

 

MIG 20

DEX 18

CON 3*

INT 18

PER 15

RES 4

 

*Yes, even on a padded wearing melee because you should be meleeing from the outside of your tank and disable before destroy. Nonetheless, priest & druid can AoE buff stack +12 DR every encounter, so with the gear below you can hit 30 DR vs slash. Also, you can give your chanter field triage and lastly, there's 2 CON food a +5% endurance talent for MC 2 MIG/CON brothel buddy. While there's only a 1 in 6 chance, wild leech can give you +10 CON.

 

focus whip

damage whip

20% corrode talent

duel wield

apprentice sneak attack

vulnerable attack

savage attack

 

10 focus: confuse (abusive way to start fights), charm, mindwave, eyestrike, antipathic beam (good damage in its own right, but also increases other beam damage)

20 focus: mental binding, phantom enemies, recall agony (awesome on paper, but mostly just for bosses because everything dies too quickly)

30 focus: ectopsychic crush (supremely lethal) , pain link

40 focus: pain block, stun + raw AoE damage (bread and butter), wild leech (I think you can still cast on your own party summons and have them watch from behind), mind lance (quick finisher), go between

50 focus: tactical meld, detonate (very high AoE crush damage on explode - not sure if explosion still gives you focus back), borrowed instinct

60 focus: mind plague, amplified wave

70 focus: time parasite (you already hit 0 recovery with Outlander's frenzy but this is good when it when that wears off), stasis

80 focus: reaver blades (put this on your barbarian and you can't spend focus fast enough), defensive mindweb (an I win button)

 

x2 Bittercut legendary with corrosion lash/Twinsting

2 PER, 0.1 flank damage padded armor with retaliate

3 MIG helm with retaliation

2 INT focus neck

3 DR bypass, 5 DR v slash, and 5% miss to graze conversion gloves

1.8 movement when health above 75% and +21 interrupt when below belt

ring with the 1 use per stronghold turn buff and passive overseer

3 DEX 5 reflex 20 def v stun+prone ring

beam proc boots 1/encounter when crit

 

If MC: donate Devil to the blood pool, 0.3 crit faction talent, 1 MIG boon talent, 3 MIG stronghold rest, 2 MIG + 2 CON brothel buddy, 1 PER quest talent, 1 PER + 1 INT + 1 RES quest talent, 0.1 crit quest talent

What difficulty are you playing on? You would be absolutely insane to dump CON to 3 points on POTD for a melee cipher. Completely insane. At starting levels I wouldn't dump res to 3 either , perhaps reroll and dump to 3 at later levels when your deflection is high enough.

 

Min maxing is over rated and not needed. You need max intelligence and perhaps dexterity on a cipher nothing else

 

You roll ciphers for three reasons: amplified wave, time parasite and defensive mindweb. Build you cipher to get the most out of these powers. They are game changers that other casters can only dream about.

Edited April 16, 2017 by firkraag888

[Boeroer]

In my opinion you roll a cipher for good weapons damage + mind control. The rest that comes later is only bonus and not really crucial - because who will challenge you anyways when your party is lvl 13+?. But mind control at such early stages in the game and with such good accuracy is invaluable.

 

3 CON on a melee cipher can work - however, it would be too much of a hassle for me.

Edited April 17, 2017 by Boeroer

[firkraag888]

^^^^**

 

For players like us who have done 1000+ hours of game play yes the late levels become to easy and boring but for newbies they would definitely find it a challenge.

 

And those powers arent that late game they get wave at level 10 I think, parasite 12 and web 14.

 

But yeah they do good weapon damage meanwhile. It's a pity you can't buff yourself much as a cipher. Hope they fix that in deadfire

Edited April 17, 2017 by firkraag888

[MasterCipher]

POTD is the only difficulty I've ever played, typically full hireling parties. When I first started, I tried high RES and CON builds, but now I only put CON on my Barbarian. I actually like to micro status afflictions. Opening with confusion, right angle pulling, disabled monsters, and the occasional summon sponges = not much incoming damage.

[smjjames]

After reading that the Ciphers have a LOT of gameplay to them (don't know if more than the others), I've been thinking of rolling a cipher (maybe wood elf, not sure) with a scientist background (why is that background only in 'living lands'? The animancers are basically scientists too, though more in the way alchemists are scientists than real world science) which uses ranged weapons. I've also found that the dominate ability is pretty potent, heh. It's less of a min/max build and more of a RP build, but I'd like to be able to get the most out of it as I can.

 

However, I'm not sure what weapon, ranged or otherwise, and YES, I know what thread this is, lol.

 

I would prefer ranged, but this is going to be a high int and per build, so, I dunno.

Edited April 18, 2017 by smjjames

[Boeroer]

Both (melee or ranged) works well with a cipher. When ranged there are three approaches which grant good focus:

1. Quick Switch + multiple guns or arbalests or crossbows: you want to get as many weapon sets as possible (Island Aumaua + Arms Bearer talent = 4 weapon sets) and fill them with your weapom s of choice, e.g. arquebuses. Once you want to focus you switch to an unfired weapon set and shoot. This can give you immense focus bursts when you need them, but only 4 times until you have to reload. Another variant is to use a bow or implement for the 4th weapon set and use that after all guns got fired.
Pro: very fast focus gain at the beginning of the combat
Con: slower focus gain once you used all guns, intensive micromanagement because of manual switching
Special feature: there's a crossbow in the game that works with every weapon focus and shoots two times before you have to reload and it also gives +3 extra focus per shot for ciphers.

I would recommend 4 arquebuses.

2. Bows:
Yeah and that's basically it. Bows have higher sustained DPS when the fights are longer. Hunting Bows are faster and do better against foes with low DR, war bows also work ok against armored foes but are slower.
Pro: higher DPS
Con: sometimes takes a few more shots to get enough focus against high DR foes.
Special feature: there's a Hunting Bow in the game that works with every weapon focus causes -6 shock DR on the target and does shock damage (works with Heart of the Storm talent).

I would use war bows.

3. Implements:
Same as bows basically, implements have a bit less base damage but two damage types which can be a big advantage against foes who are resistant or immune to pierce damage as well as meeting foes who are vulnerable to crush or slash. There's also an implement with the speed enchantment fairly early in the game (Engwythan Scepter) which will be the best ranged DPS (or better: focus per second) option overall for a cipher - at that point in the game.
Pro: very flexible, better DPS when meeting pierce resistant foes or foes who have a certain weakness.
Con: a bit less DPS against foes with no special resistance to pierce damage
Special feature: there's a rod in the game that shoots two projectiles instead of one and it can proc a spell on hit that lowers enemies' DR by 5 points and debuffs their defenses.

I would aim for the Golden Gaze (rod, ruffian) or stick to the Engwythan Sceptre (scepter, noble). The good thing with wands rods and scepters is that they are both in the same weapon group and thus you can cover all physical damage types (crush/slash/pierce) with a wand rod and a scepter in your weapon slots.

All those approaches work well. At the moment I like the implements best.

Edited April 20, 2017 by Boeroer

[dgray62]

Aren't rods Noble weapons, like scepters? I thought only wands were different, Adventurer, I think.

[smjjames]

Aren't rods Noble weapons, like scepters? I thought only wands were different, Adventurer, I think.

 

Yep, says so on the wiki.

[Ensign]

Scepters and Rods are the ones that share a weapon focus, so you get the Engwithan Scepter early, and later can mix in Golden Gaze or Pretty Pretty's Rib.  It's a solid choice, especially since you get reasonable options both early and later in the game.

 

War Bow does have the advantage of sharing a mastery with Wands, so you can always stick one of those in your off-slot for pierce immunes (though there aren't any sexy unique DPS wands in the game) - but you don't get the really good War Bows until late (unless you opt to ally with the Dozens).  Of course, unless you're swinging at a pierce immune a vanilla warbow is going to perform similarly to the Engwithan Scepter at the points in the game where those are the relevant choices.

 

 

I have a preference for War Bows on high Dex Ciphers and a preference for Scepters on high Might Ciphers, which more or less splits the difference between the two - but YMMV.

[Boeroer]

Yes, sorry, it was rod + scepter that are in the same weapon group. Not wand & scepter. Thanks for pointing out. 

[dgray62]

I always found it a bit strange that rods, wands & scepters do not share the same weapon focus. It seems counterintuitive; once you specialize in one type of implement it should be pretty easy to use any type of implement. But I'm sure all of the Eothasian priests out there are happy that wands share the Adventurer focus with flails!

[Boeroer]

Why is that?

[smjjames]

I guess for balance reasons?

 

Though it does seem slightly counterintuitive, yeah, since wands, scepters, and rods, are all things you shoot magic out of. Though Durance prefers to hit things with his (yeah, I know, it's a staff, not a wand/scepter/rod).

[Boeroer]

No, I meant: why should all of the Eothasian priests out there be happy that wands share the Adventurer focus with flails?

[Blades of Vanatar]

Scepters and Rods are the ones that share a weapon focus, so you get the Engwithan Scepter early, and later can mix in Golden Gaze or Pretty Pretty's Rib. It's a solid choice, especially since you get reasonable options both early and later in the game.

 

War Bow does have the advantage of sharing a mastery with Wands, so you can always stick one of those in your off-slot for pierce immunes (though there aren't any sexy unique DPS wands in the game) - but you don't get the really good War Bows until late (unless you opt to ally with the Dozens). Of course, unless you're swinging at a pierce immune a vanilla warbow is going to perform similarly to the Engwithan Scepter at the points in the game where those are the relevant choices.

 

 

I have a preference for War Bows on high Dex Ciphers and a preference for Scepters on high Might Ciphers, which more or less splits the difference between the two - but YMMV.

You don't have to ally with the dozens to purchase Borresaine. Just do Osric's quest and the store becomes available. I think Borresaine is the by far the best early game now do to its special ability.