Cipher Weapons

[Boeroer]

Well, Borresaine can be bought from the guy at the market. Named Irgrun or so - not the Dozens. Cloudpiercer is the war bow you'll get from the dozens if you do "The Bronze beneath the Lake", and that's indeed the second faction quest which will lock you out of the other factions. However, you can also simply kill Wenan (and all other Dozens) and loot the bow from his corpse.

[Blades of Vanatar]

Well, Borresaine can be bought from the guy at the market. Named Irgrun or so - not the Dozens. Cloudpiercer is the war bow you'll get from the dozens if you do "The Bronze beneath the Lake", and that's indeed the second faction quest which will lock you out of the other factions. However, you can also simply kill Wenan (and all other Dozens) and loot the bow from his corpse.

Derp! You're right, my bad. Mixing up my bows. Cloudpiercer is meh though. Borresaine rocks.

 

Never tried this.... if you kill Irgun what does he drop?

[smjjames]

I fully expect the merchants to be level 16 fighters or whatever. lol.

[Boeroer]

Hehe, no - they are mainly wussies.

[Boeroer]

Never tried this.... if you kill Irgun what does he drop?

Nothing special. And all of Copperlane turns hostile. Wouldn't do that.

 

The dozens however are such idiots - I really like to wipe them out.

 

Cloudpiercer is not bad, too. It is rending (3 DR bypass) and has a spell striking (Jolting Touch). But I also think Borresaine is better because of the stunning enchantment.

Edited April 20, 2017 by Boeroer

[MasterCipher]

Having come back to the game in prep for POE2 and booking up properly on lashes.

 

Cipher Weapons

I used to be big on ranged weapons, but if you like strategizing for risk/reward, I think the melee payoff for damage output and focus gain is worth it.

 

Duel Bittercuts are great, but you have to wait a long time before you can clone a legendary with the mold.

Same is true for duel wounding daggers, but worsened by fact that wounding doesn't generate focus.

You don't need duplicate Tidefall, but the damage mechanic itself for wounding doesn't work as intended - more INT results in less damage and a Cipher can't afford low INT.

Knockdown and Annihilation greatsword is solid all around, but the prone affect is short and redundant for most parties and obviously useless against prone immune.

Firebrand gloves, quite frankly are top weapon dps for cipher. It's "only" Damage III, but the base damage is much higher than a regular 2 hander. Damage modifiers benefit significantly from higher base damage. I'm hoping scion of flame results in the base damage being boosted by 20%. Either way, Firebrand is available early, but the drawback of course is you only get 3 uses per rest. This is worth doubling to 6 with the helwax mold.

 

Weapons 2 and 3 are Twinsting and the haste quarterstaff from floor 3 of endless paths (haste + legendary + flame lash - you can't squeeze these enchantments on other 14 slot 2 handers and you can't durganize soulbound). The qstaff lets you hit 0 recovery with Time Parasite in padded without gloves of swift action. You won't hit 0 with Firebrand, but the damage makes up for it.

 

 

Question on duel wielding, if you kill a target with the primary hand can you attack a new target with the offhand without having to wait to swing the primary again? Basically, I'm curious if there's a loss in DPS if you kill with your primary swing.

Edited April 21, 2017 by MasterCipher

[Boeroer]

Yes, Scion of Flame boosts Firebrand's damage. It also is annihilating, giving you +0.5 crit damage.

 

Dual wielding: since you are using auto attacks with a cipher the main hand and offhand will always alternate no matter if you killed a foe or not. This is not the case with Full Attack abilites - but ciphers don't have those.

[dgray62]

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

 

Boeroer, what I meant is that if you're playing an Eothasian priest, and probably using a flail and shield for your main weapon combo, you have two nice possibilities for a ranged weapon for your other weapon slot, warbows or wands. The former may be better in most cases, but there are also some interesting wands out there, which your wizard (with noble weapon focus most likely) probably won't be using.

[Boeroer]

Ah, ok. But Hope Eternal gives you +10 ACC for flail and morningstar only. Your wand or war bow would lack 10 ACC. If you'd want the best combo of melee and ranged you would need to take a flail/morningstar + the soulbound scepter. That works with every weapon focus and with Hope Eternal as well.

 

This also works with Firebrand, Nightshroud, Steadfast, Unlabored Blade, Abydon's Hammer and Grey Sleeper. Summoned or soulbound weapons all can be used by a priest and will get both ACC buffs: Weapon Focus and also the specific talent of the deity (like Hope Eternal). Sadly, only magran and wael grant ranged weapon bonuses.

[dgray62]

Boeroer, you are right about the soulbound scepter being the best ranged option for an Eothasian priest. In my current game, with a melee cipher MC and a ranged cipher, monk, paladin, priest & wizard, I gave the soulbound scepter to my priest and am having Aloth use Golden gaze.

 

To return to the cipher weapons topic, my MC is currently level 7, and is dual wielding Bittercut and Resolution. He already has the Biting Whip, Draining Whip, and WF Ruffian talents. I presume that Two Weapon Style would be the best choice to maximize DPS at level 8, right? I am also toying with going for Spirit of Decay at level 8, and having him use a shield instead. He's been sturdy so far in Sanguine Plate. I'm just not sure if would be better to dual wield or go with weapon and shield in the long run; I fear he might be bit too squishy to handle the hordes of nasty creatures in and around Durgan's Battery. [Edited to correct spelling mistake]

Edited April 21, 2017 by dgray62

[Livegood118]

Boeroer, you are right about the soulbound scepter being the best ranged option for an Eothasian priest. In my current game, with a melee cipher MC and a ranged cipher, monk, paladin, priest & wizard, I gave the soulbound scepter to my priest and am having Aloth use Golden gaze.

 

To return to the cipher weapons topic, my MC is currently level 7, and is dual wielding Bittercut and Resolution. He already has the Biting Whip, Draining Whip, and WF Ruffian talents. I presume that Two Weapon Style would be the best choice to maximize DPS at level 8, right? I am also toying with going for Spirit of Decay at level 8, and having him use a shield instead. He's been sturdy so far in Sanguine Plate. I'm just not sure if would be better to dual wield or go with weapon and shield in the long run; I fear he might be bit too squishy to handle the hordes of nasty creatures in and around Durgan's Battery. [Edited to correct spelling mistake]

 

 

Personally, for a melee Cipher I would go:

 

– Sanguine Plate + Dual Wield/Reach Weapon with shield on switch before you've got access to Durgan Steel

– 1H Speed Weapon + Small Shield after you get your hands on Durgan Steel

– 2H Speed Weapon at Level 15 once you get defensive mindweb

 

Heavy Armour and dual wield in the early game with Sanguine Plate gives you a decent balance of offence/defence (have a shield on switch). With a Durgan Shield, Durganised Speed weapon and the gloves of swift action + Durgan Sanguine plate you'll have a really nice balance of offence/defence in the mid game and attack about as fast as you were before when you were dual wielding.

 

After Level 15 it doesn't matter what armour you're wearing because you've got access to defensive Mindweb which means you can go 100% balls to the wall on offence with Blade of the Endless Paths/Time Parasite at 0 Recovery.

Edited April 21, 2017 by Livegood118

[dgray62]

Thanks for advice, Livegood118. I think I'll go for Spirit of Decay at level 8, and Weapon and Shield at level 10, and then respec to Two Weapon Style after level 15, and once I have cloned the fully upgraded Bittercut.

[Livegood118]

Thanks for advice, Livegood118. I think I'll go for Spirit of Decay at level 8, and Weapon and Shield at level 10, and then respec to Two Weapon Style after level 15, and once I have cloned the fully upgraded Bittercut.

 

 

A Cipher with a Durganised Blade of the Endless Paths and Gauntlets of swift action and Time Parasite will attack with 0 recovery in Durganised Full Plate. He'll attack just as fast as a character duel wielding Bittercuts and do a lot more damage.

 

A Durganised Bittercut + Durganised Shield + Gloves of Swift Action + Time Parasite Combo with Durganised Full Plate will attack with only approx 10% of recovery (negligible).

 

Basically, if you're going to use Time Parasite, you don't gain much from going the two weapon style route because it's so good (the main benefit of dual wielding is full attacks, of which the cipher has none, and decreased recovery).

 

Dual wielding bittercuts does come with the cool factor though so I don't blame you

Edited April 21, 2017 by Livegood118

[dgray62]

Perhaps I'll give Durganised Blade of the Endless Paths a try; thanks for the tip, Livegood118. There are certainly many good options to try.

[rheingold]

How do daggers work with ciphers? They certainly seem to be a viable choice particularly at low to mid levels. The extra accuracy is great and there are some good ones early on, namely the March dagger. My dual dagger wielding orlan seems to be doing ok. I presume at higher levels though it is still better to go sabres? Or maybe some of the models combined with daggers would still be a good option, maybe cautious attack or savage attack? Still should get to zero recovery with heavy armour.

Edited May 3, 2017 by rheingold

[Livegood118]

How do daggers work with ciphers? They certainly seem to be a viable choice particularly at low to mid levels. The extra accuracy is great and there are some good ones early on, namely the March dagger. My dual dagger wielding orlan seems to be doing ok. I presume at higher levels though it is still better to go sabres? Or maybe some of the models combined with daggers would still be a good option, maybe cautious attack or savage attack? Still should get to zero recovery with heavy armour.

 

 

Drawn in Spring is an amazing weapon but unfortunately wounding doesn't generate focus so I wouldn't use it on a Cipher.

 

I think daggers suffer from the same problem that all "small" one-handed weapons face as you progress in the game, which is that damage multipliers become more plentiful and these work better with higher base damage weapons, and enemy DR tends to increase as the game goes on too.

 

I can't think of any build that's more optimal with a small weapon (Starcaller stun on hit, Drawn in Spring notwithstanding) than with larger weapons, unless you wanna count Monk Fists as a small weapon  Spelltongue and the Sword of Daenysis are quite cool too.

[MasterCipher]

Damage Type can go a long way boosting your focus gains.

 

Avg base DR in game is 9.21

 

best to worst damage types:

 

1 crush/pierce 8.14

2 crush/slash 8.25 (Pollaxes)

3 crush 8.71 (just by itself is better than slash/pierce)

4 slash/pierce 8.79

5 corrode 9.04

6 burn 9.14

 

7 pierce 9.45 (worse than baseline)

8 shock 9.7

9 freeze 9.87

10 slash 10.31

 

The difference between 1st and 10th places is 2 points, which may not seem like much at first, but the game calculates lash damage (like weapon enchantments) as a % of base damage, against 1/4 of DR, not modified by damage penetration.

 

Example, your base damage is 20, you have a 25% burn lash, use vulnerable attack, and attack an enemy with 10 DR.

Your adjusted base damage will be 15 (20 - 5 instead of minus 10 b/c of vulnerable attack).

Your lash damage will be 2.5 (5 - 2.5, vulnerable attack is not used).

Total damage = 17.5

 

If the enemy is weak against fire, DR 4, lash damage would be 5 -1 = 4 for a total damage of 19.

 

This still doesn't look that exciting on paper, but when you start stacking damage modifiers, MIG in particular, it's significant.

 

Every weapon has 14 enchantment slots.

Legendary enchantment 8

Weapon lash 2

Durganize 0

Pick a weapon that has 4 or less in other useful enchantments or throw on Kith Bane for 4

 

Enchantment costs (not comprehensive):

haste, stunning = 3

annihilation, marking, coordinating, vicious, wounding, most things = 2

 

Soulbound weapons can't be durganized or enchanted with lashes which generally holds them back DPS wise, however StormCaller and Steadfast deserve special consideration.

 

Stormcaller deals Shock/Pierce, which wasn't averaged, but you can eyeball the 2 columns and the base synergy is really good; if something is strong against pierce it is usually weak against shock - let's call call the avg DR 8. But Stormcaller debuffs shock DR by 6, so it's DR is more like 9 - 6 = 3 and of course you boost it's base damage by 20% taking the Heart of Storm talent. The proc is good for all classes, but for a Chanter, but it is a radius and not a cone stun, actually making it superior to the normal invocation.

 

Steadfast, the proc is a level 6 druid spell with a high 15% chance, which can crit for a brutal 150 damage. If a Skaen Priest wears gloves of spiritual power and dual wield Steadfast with the +1 MIG hammer (maybe vent pick IF the FOD proc triggers an extra swing of Steadfast), the proc makes up for the weapon damage limitations. (Only Priests and Paladins get this proc).

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_gwdYqK9oOlMjdmS2JaUDhOdkU/view (courtesy of someone else on these forums)

Edited May 3, 2017 by MasterCipher

[MaxQuest]

How do daggers work with ciphers? They certainly seem to be a viable choice particularly at low to mid levels.

At levels 4..8 yes they can work. Because you have +0.4 from whips that help you bypass DR, and because you might get: Sword of Daenysis + March Steel Dagger + Sanguine Plate; + Two-Weapon Fighting for some decent attack speed. Plus rapiers and daggers belong to the same focus group.

 

Another 'fast' and early game (1..5) alternative could be double stilettos. For example Azureith's Stiletto + Simple Stiletto. DR reduction is decent until you start getting high damage coefficients from weapon enchants.

 

And for the mid game there is one more fast weapon: Vierina's Leaves. It has superb quality. And because it is on endless paths level 11, you can get it before level 12, i.e. before you would be able to enchant your weapons with that quality)

Edited May 3, 2017 by MaxQuest

[rheingold]

So at the moment I'm rolling with March steel dagger and sword of Daenysis. Just got to DB and I don't have vulnerable attack or two weapon fighting yet. Still the amount of focus generated is insane, can't possibly spend it all in a fight. Obviously later game it might slow down. Having said that I've still to get vulnerable attack and weapon lashes. I think I'll stick rapiers and daggers, it looks cool and will probably give the sabres to Eder and Doc.

[Boeroer]

With Vulnerable Attack and still having 0 recovery it's all good. Good thing about rapier + dagger is that you'll have two damage types. Dagger + dagger can be nice because of Flick of the Wrist + dagger's inherent +5 ACC. 

 

Sword of Daenysis + Vulnerable Attack + Ryona's Vambraces would have 11 DR bypass, March Steel Dagger 8 DR bypass. That's great with high attack speed.

 

High attack speed is also nice when it comes to casting. You can intersperse spells a lot faster if you don't have recovery on your weapons.

 

Only thing that is always bad with low dmg weapons are lashes - no matter how much DR bypass you stack. Luckily you can use Body Attunement to lower enemies' DR directly.

[Lampros]

War Bow is a solid choice for a ranged cipher. But I would really like to see a cipher with The Golden Gaze. Soul Whip, Biting Whip and Dangerous Implements plus Apprentice's Sneak Attack add up nicely to a total bonus of +80% base damage.

 

Too bad the cipher has nothing like Blast or Driving Flight to tune up the proc chance of Expose Vulnerabilites. Of course Time Siphon is nice, but it comes rather late.

 

Another nice variant for a cipher is Firebrand (Forgemaster's Gloves). With its high base damage and annihilation it works extremely well with Soul- and Biting Whip as well as with crits (which do happen a lot if you use Mental Binding for example). You can also use gear that gives +10% against flanked targets and add survival-bonus to it (up to +30%, +20% is more realistic) and then use Phantom Foes to trigger this. Phantom Foes also works with Apprentice Sneak Attack. Scion of Flame boosts the damage of Firebrand by 20%. Add Savage Attack and Two Handed Style and you'll pile up the following dmg bonuses:

 

- Soul Whip: 20%

- Biting Whip: 20%

- Flanking bonus: +30% (+40% in theory)

- Appr. Sneak: +15%

- Two Handed Style: +15%

- Savage Attack: +20%

- Scion of Flame: +20%

-------------------------

= +140% weapon base damage without enchantments and MIG (Firebrand has Damaging III which adds +45% damage as well). With Damaging III this adds up to +195% at 10 MIG.

 

On a crit this will be +295% (without Merciless Hand).

 

Of course you can only summon Firebrand thrice per rest - but you can use an estoc or great sword for backup. Actually Justice is not bad because lashes do generate focus and justice has two of them: a 10% crushing lash and an additional +25% crushing lash. Of you manage to get that first lash through DR it's not bad for early to mid game. Later, with elemental lashes and durgan steel I would perhaps use Rumbalt or Blade of the Endless paths. But nothing beats Firebrand in the early to mid game if you can stack a lot of dmg bonuses.

 

You are a site treasure!

[Lampros]

The biggest consideration in my mind is how much gear you want to dump into the character.  Durgan Ingots are a very limited resource, for instance, and you're not going to have 6 sets of Gauntlets of Swift Action, and there's only one Helwax Mold - and all the max DPS builds mentioned above are going to make a lot of demands on those resources.

 

I like BotEP on a melee Cipher as it's less demanding than the other options, and still very high performance.  Plus there are lots of great two-handers that work better on other classes, and you can ride the adventurer weapon focus to use a war bow until you build up some of the gear to really activate the melee Cipher.

 

For ranged Ciphers, blunderbuss is ok it shares traits with pistol, so you can swap between the two (pistols for high DR enemies, blunderbuss for low / debuffed foes).  If you aren't going to micro a quick switch / arquebus every fight you'll get better performance out of blunderbuss + pistol as needed.  More importantly, firearms are way less resource dependent than war bows to be effective.  If you're going to throw your ingots and GoSA at your ranged cipher, war bow is going to outperform firearms pretty handily, but if you're not (because you'd rather use those on a different character) firearms are the way to go.  Firearms end up outperforming bows in the early to mid points in the game for similar reasons - they really just need traits, not gear, to shine, but benefit so much less from durganifying than bows that they fall off once that comes online.

 

So there are a lot of good options, and a lot really depends on what else you want in your party - and who is getting dibs on the priority DPS gear.

 

How many items per game can you usually enchant Durgan enchants with?

[Boeroer]

Depends. One handed weapons for example only need one ingot while two handed need two. 

 

It also depends how you solve the quest around the White Forge. There's an option where you can make the smelting from raw durgan steel bars (the stuff you find and loot) into refined ingots (the final resource for enchantment) more effective (from 3:1 to 2:1).

[Lampros]

Damage Type can go a long way boosting your focus gains.

 

Avg base DR in game is 9.21

 

best to worst damage types:

 

1 crush/pierce 8.14

2 crush/slash 8.25 (Pollaxes)

3 crush 8.71 (just by itself is better than slash/pierce)

4 slash/pierce 8.79

5 corrode 9.04

6 burn 9.14

 

7 pierce 9.45 (worse than baseline)

8 shock 9.7

9 freeze 9.87

10 slash 10.31

 

The difference between 1st and 10th places is 2 points, which may not seem like much at first, but the game calculates lash damage (like weapon enchantments) as a % of base damage, against 1/4 of DR, not modified by damage penetration.

 

Example, your base damage is 20, you have a 25% burn lash, use vulnerable attack, and attack an enemy with 10 DR.

Your adjusted base damage will be 15 (20 - 5 instead of minus 10 b/c of vulnerable attack).

Your lash damage will be 2.5 (5 - 2.5, vulnerable attack is not used).

Total damage = 17.5

 

If the enemy is weak against fire, DR 4, lash damage would be 5 -1 = 4 for a total damage of 19.

 

This still doesn't look that exciting on paper, but when you start stacking damage modifiers, MIG in particular, it's significant.

 

Every weapon has 14 enchantment slots.

Legendary enchantment 8

Weapon lash 2

Durganize 0

Pick a weapon that has 4 or less in other useful enchantments or throw on Kith Bane for 4

 

Enchantment costs (not comprehensive):

haste, stunning = 3

annihilation, marking, coordinating, vicious, wounding, most things = 2

 

Soulbound weapons can't be durganized or enchanted with lashes which generally holds them back DPS wise, however StormCaller and Steadfast deserve special consideration.

 

Stormcaller deals Shock/Pierce, which wasn't averaged, but you can eyeball the 2 columns and the base synergy is really good; if something is strong against pierce it is usually weak against shock - let's call call the avg DR 8. But Stormcaller debuffs shock DR by 6, so it's DR is more like 9 - 6 = 3 and of course you boost it's base damage by 20% taking the Heart of Storm talent. The proc is good for all classes, but for a Chanter, but it is a radius and not a cone stun, actually making it superior to the normal invocation.

 

Steadfast, the proc is a level 6 druid spell with a high 15% chance, which can crit for a brutal 150 damage. If a Skaen Priest wears gloves of spiritual power and dual wield Steadfast with the +1 MIG hammer (maybe vent pick IF the FOD proc triggers an extra swing of Steadfast), the proc makes up for the weapon damage limitations. (Only Priests and Paladins get this proc).

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_gwdYqK9oOlMjdmS2JaUDhOdkU/view (courtesy of someone else on these forums)

 

Hmmm, so are Soulbound items worse?

[mosspit]

Soulbound Items are usually preferred for their utility abilities and desirable on-hit/on-crit effects. Non-soulbound weapons are preferred from a pure dmg standpoint.