The most ultimate Mindstalker Glass Canon build!

[mhroczyn]

"You know, it's probably going to be bad when it has ultimate in it's name..." - someone on NWN2DB forum.

 

In first PoE I've played as a DUAL WIELDING LIGHT WEAPONS MOON GODLIKE CIPHER OF DOOM with apprentice's sneak attack and I !@#$ing enjoyed that build!

This build was quite powerfull maybe not op but still. I had a lot of CC abilites and some nice DpS ones also Silver Tide saved me more than once. However in this game I would like something even more roguish and the Mindstalker is what I need.

So I will post my build here and I hope that some of you will give me advice on how to improve it even more! Also pls don't post anything souding like:

 

- but there're more powerfull builds like Inquisitor or pure Rogue! - I don't care I want my MINDSTALKER (I remember cipher had quite a lot of class specific dialogues and it was cool),

- but Sneak Attack was nerfed in beta or sth (read previous line↑).

 

Have in mind that I'm trying to make this build pure melee DpS and therefore it has a lot of DoT abilites at cost of CC ones (and I know this build doesn't have almost any defences but this issue can probably be fixed or atleast altered a little with proper team mangement). Also I want to have a nice gameplay at the same time so I won't pick sth like dwarf or aumaua (no offence) for max 21 might and I won't downgrade CON or RES below 10. I will pick either human or moon godlike. So now you see this build will be op and ultimate only in term of talent choose. Oh and we are going two weapon style !@#$ one hand crit bonus.

 

Here are my starting attributes:

MIG 18

CON 10

DEX 16

PER 10

INT 14

RES 10

 

We're starting as Cipher - Soul Blade and Rogue - Assassin with Rapier, Stiletto, Sabre, Dagger, Hunting Bow, War Bow + 1sth else as weapon proficiency in that order.

 

LVL\CLASS                        ROGUE                                                                                                              CIPHER

 

  1.                                 Escape (active)                                                                                             Whispers of Treason / Eyestrike Escape (active)

  2.                                 Backstab (passive)

  3.                                                                                                                                                    Penetrating Visions (passive)

  4.                                 Two Weapon Style (passive)                                                                           Biting Whip (passive)

  5.                                                                                                                                                    Phantom Foes / Mental Binding (active)

  6.                                 Dirty Fighting (passive)

  7.                                 Finishing Blow (active)                                                                                   Hammering Thoughts (passive)

  8.                                 Strike the Bell (active) 

  9.                                                                                                                                                    Psychic Backlash (passive)

10.                                 Shadowing Beyond (active)                                                                             Greater Focus (passive)

11.                                 Withering Strike (active) 

12.                                                                                                                                                    Wild Leech (active)

13.                                Devastating Blow (active)                                                                                Brutal Backlash (passive)

14.                                Deep Wounds (passive)

15.                                                                                                                                                    Keen Mind (passive)

16.                                Toxic Strike (active)                                                                                        Improved Critical (passive)

17.                                Uncanny Luck (passive)

18.                                Ring the Bell (active) 

19.                                Deathblows (passive)                                                                                      Potent Empower (passive)

20.                                Penetrating Empower (passive)

 

As you can see cipher gains only 3 active abilities. I wonder if it's worth investing 2 points in Backlash for situational encounters only and maybe instead take more cipher active talents for CC? Also does Penetrating Visions affect Soul Whip or spells only? If spells only sth else should be taken on its place.

One more thing. What about skills? I surely need stealth but I've found myself a bit lost about their distribution. It seems there is no hard cap for them only soft and I don't want to put all points in one skill. What would be max adviced value to put in stealth and mechanics or persuasion skills such as diplomacy, intimidate or bluff to have acces to all dialogue options and locked chests? Alchemy also seem quite nice for poisons periodic damage. And how team skill sharing exacly work here?

[DigitalDemon]

In first PoE I've played as a DUAL WIELDING LIGHT WEAPONS MOON GODLIKE CIPHER OF DOOM with apprentice's sneak attack and I !@#$ing enjoyed that build!

That's almost exactly what I played in PoE1 - a dual-saber Moon Godlike Cipher. I enjoyed that character so much that I was dead set on playing some Cipher variant in PoE2. Initially I chose the Mindstalker, although a slightly different one from yours (Ascendant/Rogue), but I ended up abandoning him after I explored a couple of starting areas. Not only is this type of build quite squishy, but micromanagement gets really messy. You literally CAN'T cast spells in melee because of interrupts, so every time you want to cast a Cipher spell, you need to disengage using one of the Rogue's abilities (and thus spending guile), then try to get off the spell hoping that ranged enemies won't interrupt you (and they will), and then go back into the melee to replenish your focus pool, wasting a lot of valuable time in the process. This just doesn't work well in practice. A melee Mindstalker might be viable if you abandon ALL Cipher spells and take Soul Blade just for the Biting Whip, Soul Annihilation and the passives, but I can't give you any advice on that. Trust me, I really wanted to reconstruct my dual-wielding hybrid melee/caster Cipher from PoE1, but with changes to the game mechanics introduced in PoE2, this doesn't seem to be a good idea anymore.

 

On a side note, backstabs (and, therefore, the Assassin subclass) don't seem to mix well with dual-wielding because only the first weapon hit gets the damage bonus. So you might want to reconsider either your weapon preferences or your subclass

Edited May 11, 2018 by DigitalDemon

[Infiltrator_SF]

10 Perception? You aren't going to be seeing many soul annihilation hits. Perception should be the primary stat of any mindstalker build, it also helps with criticals so there's absolutely no reason not to dump everything into it.

[mhroczyn]

DigitalDemon if you played as the same character as mine in first PoE and you disadvise to play as mindstalker I might I repeat I MIGHT consider rerolling to sth else:) Maybe I'm going pure rogue... or pure cipher...? **** I don't know what to choose. Hmm maybe going with pure melee mindstalker wouldn't be such a bad idea taking cipher only for soul annihilation. 

 

Infiltrator_SF I forgot about perception influence on crit chance in that case attributes would look sth like this:

MIG 15

CON 10

DEX 15

PER 16

INT 12

RES 10

 

By the way nice gif from Thief game.

Edited May 11, 2018 by mhroczyn

[dunehunter]

You can dump Might to 10 because you already got a lot damage bonus.

[Noctaem]

You should never dump Might on basically any build except builds meant to do 0 damage.  Like a full tank / party face main character for example.  Or pure support builds.  It's the best of the 3 damage stats (might, dex, int) as it gives a pure scaling % multiplier to your damage.

Edited May 11, 2018 by Noctaem

[dunehunter]

You should never dump Might on basically any build except builds meant to do 0 damage.  Like a full tank / party face main character for example.  Or pure support builds.  It's the best of the 3 damage stats (might, dex, int) as it gives a pure scaling % multiplier to your damage.

 

It is tuned to additive bonus man.

[DigitalDemon]

DigitalDemon if you played as the same character as mine in first PoE and you disadvise to play as mindstalker I might I repeat I MIGHT consider rerolling to sth else:) Maybe I'm going pure rogue... or pure cipher...? **** I don't know what to choose. Hmm maybe going with pure melee mindstalker wouldn't be such a bad idea taking cipher only for soul annihilation.

I'll probably wait until the hotfix arrives on Tuesday before rerolling But I'm considering doing something entirely different from Cipher. It seems that in PoE2 the devs expect caster Ciphers to stand back and generate focus using ranged weapons, and this playstyle just isn't for me. Maybe I'll roll a Swashbuckler, I haven't decided yet

 

As for Soul Blade/Assassin who doesn't use any Cipher abilities except for Biting Whip and Soul Annihilation, I believe it was one of the archetypal builds that people played successfully in beta, so you might as well try it, maybe it'll suit you.

[Tomice]

You should never dump Might on basically any build except builds meant to do 0 damage.  Like a full tank / party face main character for example.  Or pure support builds.  It's the best of the 3 damage stats (might, dex, int) as it gives a pure scaling % multiplier to your damage.

 

It's additive now, prrof within screenshot below.

Backstab/Sneak builds don't profit much from high might when attacking from stealth.

 

And when you're not in stealth as mindstalker, you really shouldn't be in melee range...

_________________________________

 

Perception should be maxed IMO, because nothing is as frustrating as missing with your alpha strike.

Dexterity helps you to minimize the painful moments between alpha strike and whatever you wanna do next.

Intelligence helps you to stretch effect durations, so you can land more sneak attacks. And debuff longer. And hit more enemies with debuffs.

 

Not sure about resolve - as you level, your defenses rise anyway. But so does the accuracy of your foes. Can't tell yet if the few points of deflection from resolve matter later on...

 

Constitution should be high enough to not be one- or two-shot.

______________________________________________

 

Currently, I almost maxed perception (18 - to reach the 20 points that are rumored to reveal everything with items)

I left MIG and CON on 10 points as a compromise, and distributed the rest evenly between DEX, INT and RES.

I'm thinking about lowering res, though.

 

This build also happens to be a good party leader as a side effect, as PER, INT and RES give the most dialogue options.

Pair with Survival for maximum loot.

______________________________________________

 

Whispers of treason is stilla mazing, BTW.

Edited May 11, 2018 by Tomice

[pleasecruelty]

I've gone overtly glass cannon and am suffering (playing veteran) 

 

Moon Godlike, Deadfire Archipelago

M:18

C:5

D:19

P:20

I:15

R:3

 

Weapon profs: Sabre, Stiletto and Pistol (do we get more of these and at what level?)

 

I played with similar stats in POE1 and going was tough to begin with but got through it and at later levels it wasn't a problem.

 

There seems to be far more cases of monsters coming in behind, flanking and throwing my formation out of whack in Deadfire. Really hope I don't have to console edit. Currently searching for Con and Res buffing items to help out. Any idea where I can find any?

 

Also noticing monsters going for my player character and having a lot more ranged abilities than in POE1. 

 

The damage is insane though, really enjoying watching him just explode stuff.

[Tomice]

There seems to be far more cases of monsters coming in behind, flanking and throwing my formation out of whack in Deadfire. Really hope I don't have to console edit. Currently searching for Con and Res buffing items to help out. Any idea where I can find any?

 

Also noticing monsters going for my player character and having a lot more ranged abilities than in POE1. 

 

I believe POE1's encounter design was criticized as ebing to monotone, so that's good.

 

And it should actually hurt to tune your char so extremely towards the offensiv, otherwise the stats would be meaningless.

[pleasecruelty]

 

There seems to be far more cases of monsters coming in behind, flanking and throwing my formation out of whack in Deadfire. Really hope I don't have to console edit. Currently searching for Con and Res buffing items to help out. Any idea where I can find any?

 

Also noticing monsters going for my player character and having a lot more ranged abilities than in POE1. 

 

I believe POE1's encounter design was criticized as ebing to monotone, so that's good.

 

And it should actually hurt to tune your char so extremely towards the offensiv, otherwise the stats would be meaningless.

 

 

 

yeah the fights are way more dynamic. 

 

As an update now I've got a few more levels and have got to grips with how my mindstalker fights, he's an critting unstoppable death machine. it's all about placement. An item that grants a barbarian skill has helped this even further.

[trisyln]

I played a similar build to this recently, but really traded off some things as per below:

 

Rogue:

Didn't take ring the bell or withering strike

Did take confounding blind and pernicious cloud

 

Cipher:

Went totally different with valorous echoes (modded so I can self buff) - not a big deal though since this buff mostly overwrites mahora wraps and I probably wouldn't do this mod again

Secret horrors, body attunement, borrowed instinct.  This lifts off a barb/cipher build.

 

For character, I went:

Wood elf, white that wends, hunter

M:18

C:10

D:16 + 1 (racial)

P:13 + 2 (racial, job)

I:13

R:5

 

Berath's blessings adds +2 to the above, +2 might from Gift and Maneha's resentment, and +1 Per from cauldron brew

14 alchemy and 12 mechanics

22 Survival

 

Weapons: Mahora tanga, Rust's Dagger (18 / 14 Pen) = you can get to 20/16 with hot razor skewers instead of mahora wraps

 

As a note, I complement this with a universalist lifegiver druid / priest of wael, and a witch king barb/cipher as I linked above.  Both of these help get up debuffs for sneak attack quickly, from the druids AE dots and the witch king's secret horrors and tenuous grasp casts.  Most of the time my rogue just runs around using Soul Annihilation and Eliminating blow, with a few melees in between.

 

I wrote some custom AI for it, which keeps up valorous echoes and borrowed instinct, casts soul annih > 80 focus (50 in early game), devastating blow in bloodied targets, then confounding blind and secret horrors.  In the end, I choose to cast secret horrors or body attunement if I need it (I found they were either duplicate with the cipher, or missed too often to be inline AI).

 

P.S. I know I modded in a key change to self-buff cipher, but FWIW I also modded the game to be a lot harder - by adding 1-2 levels to all scaling.

Edited August 19, 2018 by trisyln

[Teclis23]

This is why wizards are so stong. All there self buffs are pretty much instant cast so they cant get interupted.

 

Ciphers and just about all casters apart from wizzys suck if you want to use spells and do melee damage. There cast times are to long

[Verde]

Borrowed Instinct has a .5 sec cast time iirc

[jww]

EDIT -- I didn't notice that this was a thread from May that got bumped. Oh well. My suggestions below were meant for the initial poster.

 

At the very minimum:

 

1. Move 6 or 8 points from MIG to PER. Extra might won't do you any good if you can't hit anything. As a cipher, PER is doubly important -- you want to hit frequently to maximize your weapon damage to build focus, but you also need to be able to hit with your cipher abilities (including soul annihilation), or you waste all the focus you just spent (very frustrating on a Soulblade, since it's *all* your focus).

 

2. Take Crippling Strike, and take it early (I'd take it before Escape). It's a full attack that costs 1 guile, which will make it your bread-and-butter attack for building focus. All of the other rogue full attacks cost 2 or more guile, so they aren't as efficient at turning resources into focus. As a side benefit, it has +2 PEN (and +25% damage, but most rogue abilities have that). The only other rogue attack ability that costs 1 guile is Sap, which is a primary attack rather than a full attack (so it might be useful for backstabs, which don't take advantage of full attacks).

 

3. I really don't think I'd waste 40 focus on Wild Leech when I could spend it on Soul Annihilation instead (or anything else, for that matter). If you're going to spend that much focus as a Soulblade, Borrowed Instinct (for 50) would be much better.

 

4. As a melee rogue, you'll probably want Persistent Distraction. Unless you spend all your time and rogue resources going invis for sneak attacks (which seems kind of inefficient), it should be pretty helpful, even if you only have the one engagement slot for the enemy you're currently attacking.

 

5. I probably wouldn't waste an ability point on Penetrating Empower. It's +1 PEN for, at most, a single attack per fight. Crippling Strikes alone gives you +2 PEN, and if you spend your Empower point on resources rather than attacks, you can use Crippling Strikes an extra 4 or 5 times during the fight. And if you use your Empower point like that, you could skip Potent Empower as well.

 

6. I don't know if you really need to spend that many points on rogue attack abilities, since they all come out of your guile pool, and you've got a couple cheap cipher abilities that can apply status effects. I'd do Crippling Strike (and Arterial Strike, if the Raw DoT builds focus -- anyone know?), plus at least one ability that attacked something other than Fortitude (Finishing Blow/Devastating Blow is good).

 

You can probably make a melee Soulblade work with some effort, but I'd lean toward a ranged build for a mindstalker. For a Soulblade, I'd probably pick a second class that's a little more durable.

Edited August 19, 2018 by jww

[trisyln]

This is why wizards are so stong. All there self buffs are pretty much instant cast so they cant get interupted.

 

Ciphers and just about all casters apart from wizzys suck if you want to use spells and do melee damage. There cast times are to long

 

I generally agree with this, and usually my only caster in a party is a a healer - universalist lifegiver druid / priest of wael has a ton of survivability and healing, and the raw damage dots are powerful.  I need a strong healer, and the damage is a perk.