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@Nathan Barnhart That's what I'm doing atm. Dual pistols. I can pretty much cast cipher spells near non-stop and drop an incantation whenever shit gets heavy. I love thinking of my dude all decked out like a pirate singing shanties with a shit eating grin over two pistols blasting away.
Having recently started playing a cipher in Pillars of Eternity, I am highly excited for the PS4 release soon. These guides are immensely helpful. The cipher was a constable with a quick draw and fast aim with firearms...but that wasn't good enough to save everyone, and it took his toll on his mind. This served to unlock his psionic abilities, and this lead directly into the beginning of the game.
Soul Blade could multiclass very well with the Shattered Pillar Monk as well. Both gain power sources through damage, you can get even more damage to your melee hits with Transcendent Suffering (as long as it stacks with Soul Whip). Also, punching your way through the game is super fun! Cast Swift Strikes at the begining to hit faster, build a lot of focus to use Soul Annihilation for high damage and then use the wounds you have accumulated in the process to deal extra damage and even get some disables. You won't be using Cipher spells frequently with this one, but the damage output would be amazing, specially with High Int and Lightning Strikes to enhance the duration and DPS gained from Swift Strikes. Anyway, thanks for the guides, you already helped me a lot with Divinity: Original Sin 2.
Thanks for all those videos, great stuff ! It helps a lot to decide what class to choose. ( You forgot to change the description of the video, it is still "Fighter Class Guide...") Edit: well that was quick :D
It should also be mentioned that the Cipher has some very powerful buffs, but most of them are at higher levels. For example, they get a level 5 buff/debuff called "Borrowed Instinct," it targets an enemy and if it hits, the enemy gets -8 intellect and perception, and you get +20 to accuracy and all defenses. There's a level 8 buff/debuff called "Time Parasite," which decreases the action speed of an enemy by 50% while increasing your action speed by 50%, and it jumps to 5 other enemies. So a single class Cipher and Soul Blade can be pretty effective since you'll get those buffs at an earlier level.
By the time the cipher has done damage enough to get there, most of the hard enemies will be gone and those abilities will not be a game changer compared to some other first strikes of other classes. PO2 has ways to build around that as PO1 was pretty limited to dps bursts with pistol switching. Then they made blights immune to piercing damage... hah, build became useless against blights then and there. Being able to cipher/rogue multi removes a lot of the class' problems. A single class cipher, though, would just make it have the same pacing issues as before. Meaning, if the enemy is weak enough for you to do massive dps against it, you won't need those high level abilities nor can you sustain/use them for long unless you just cleaned up a lot of boss trash and are fighting the boss now. A lot of the cipher's abilities are based on hitting targets. The most difficult fights are the ones that the targets are not easily hit by anyone. This creates an interesting pacing for the single class cipher, as the difficulty of the fight gets higher, the cipher gets more crippled. Even though it does have endurance in terms of abilities per encounter. For example, take borrowed instinct and the charms. When the enemies are so dangerous that you really need those abilities to hit, they do not, since those enemies have higher defenses. They need to be debuffed first. Now if they can target enemies that are charmed, at least they can now escalate off of that, but again that takes time that isn't getting focus and requires the party to tank more damage to wait or use some other survival method. That becomes a minor issue if the charmed enemies keep getting hit by wizard/druid aoes, when the cipher is waiting to recover before casting that buff by hitting the enemy. And then it has to wait for after the buff to get in range of the enemy. A lot of micro, same as rogue, but with less immediate punch. The cipher single class would do major damage with dual wielding weapons, except it has problems tanking the hits when a rogue can immediately disengage and become invisible. A cipher/rogue can fix that issue on its own, but a single class cipher needs party aid to do that. So even though I started POE1 and finished first with a cipher, after going through a few patch iterations from 1.0 to third major patch rebalance, cipher became the class I most disliked for its pacing and limitations. The only cipher build I liked was the melee riposte reflection one that relied on items. POE2 cipher is nearly the same, although they have addressed the focus issue with the whip skill split tree and a few other tweaks. Should be fine on difficulties other than POTD. Well Pillars 1 was fine too so long as it wasn't POTD. I only play tactical rpgs on some of the hardest difficulties. The Cipher in POTD POE1 was great at v 1.0, because there were so many enemies mobs that it took a party ages to finish them. Meaning the wizards and priests were already out of spells. That is no longer an advantage now that they have gone mostly with per encounter abilities. Josh's original idea of doing some kind of Pathfinder "Kineticist" knight warrior mage with the cipher didn't really work out. People usually just made cipher into a glass cannon. The best cipher spells were the ones that cast the fastest, as it gave the cipher the most time to do dps to get focus.
I'm a little late to the party but I tried a blunderbus/cc build from PE1. They changed it so that you don't proc soul whip from each pellet so you gain way less focus. Cipher/rogue sounds interesting.
I am not sure why at 4:25 you say "albeit from melee range". All of the sneak attack goodness applies to ranged too, even more so due to the take-your-pick opportunism that the ranged combat offers. In fact, Beguiler Mindstalker is my favorite main class so far. Massive focus gains and exploding enemies on demand with Crippling Strikes from level 1, enabling sneak attacks for the rest of the party plus disables and charms with the rest of the spells... And the Beguiler Focus gain means I cannot waste Focus fast enough, so I sprinkle in non-deception fast-cast spells like Mind Blades too. Reloading weapons also seem to work better than bows/mage sticks, because you are ready to cast at any moment during reload and the combat openers deal such gigantic damage. With a bow, you have to wait through the long recovery, so its autoattacks hamper critical timing of certain spells (e.g. Mental Binding enemies at moments when they cannot melee anything from their current position; or charming a menacing enemy ASAP before they evaporate a squishy on your team).
I love your guides, but why are certain races suggested based on stats provided? The stats provided by races are generally a flat boost of +2 ability points, since you can just move back and forth through the creation screens and adjust where you want the points to go anyway; an elf's +1 dex/per can be manipulated into being +2 might or int if you wanted, making their core racial abilities (freeze/burn reduction for pale elf, for example) far more meaningful than the stats regardless of the race chosen. The same applies for land of origin, where you can just back up and redistribute that attribute point wherever you wanted it to go.
Racial ability bonuses are not just that. Standard maximum for ability points is 18. With +2 perception for Orlans for example you can bump it to 20. It becomes important if you do min/max start. So just look at it as a bonus or penalty to a maximum of 18. Same goes for origin. If you want an Orlan with 18 Might you need to pick origin that gives you +1 Might. Otherwise your max will be 17, since Orlans have -1 Might penalty.
spoiler? how much of this helps me with pillars of eternity 1 without teaching me stuff that isn't existing in the first game? I'M trying to see if I can find out something that helps me with the mother or the devil of chohac or whatever she is called. I don't play them very actively but beside the dragons and one certain enemy group I beat most of my enemys without doing much. I'm not even sure if I play Kanna right, but he is one of the last to die often enough and I gave him some summonings. I might need to reroll some characters since I tried to have a lockpicker and ended up with training three of them in skill they don't need. Also I figured out my druid isn't effektive from what I heard. I just didn't knew that the game works this and that way when I started. Now I only have a problem with leveling up Peleginas Sword because she needs to die 5 times in order for it to gain the next level.
How well does No Subclass Cipher work with Druid? I couldn't decide which of those two I would play for game 1 but now I could be both? I know druid doesn't click that well with focus build because of casting but it does have spiritshift and a lot of strong buffs, debuffs and AoE attacks, which is what cipher lacks.
Max dex/perception dual wielding mindstalker is friggin AMAZING. You trade single hit damage for speeedy dps which in the long run will do more damage. Since trash mobs die in one or two hits regardless I found highhh as shit dex made my mindstalker much more dps heavy
6 років тому+7
Are the whip upgrades mutually exclusive or can I pick both? :)
I'm not a fan of pure ciphers, toi slow to pick up on most combat encounters. Multiclass with rogue is very cool tough, and I'll soon test with broken pillar monk.
Do multiclass of both. Inquisitor is a fantastic blend of damage and survivability. Also, quite versatile. And lastly - some great roleplaying potential.
nope. can't even save before the table..You have to slog through it every. single. damn. time.. Hopefully they will adress/change it somehow, either letting us save before table, or flat out skip the intro walk..
I just started a Cipher/Paladin build using the Arquebus and I'm having a lot of fun playing it but I was wondering if the two-handed skill affects two-handed firearms?
It does indeed. You can verify this by pausing the game after you've hit a target, and mousing over the text of your Hit in the combat box and holding Shift. It will show you how your damage was calculated and you will see Two-Handed Style factors in :)
Ugh I wanna play a soulblade, but not having played PoE 1 and the warnings in the game I'm not sure about multiclassing. Is it a neccesary thing when picking Soul Blade as it seems here.
If you don't Multiclass when you choose Soul Blade you will have Soul Annihilation as your only melee ability. So it'll be auto attack, cast spell, auto attack, cast spell, and maybe sometimes auto attack, auto attack Soul Annihilation.
Multiclassing is not that hard. It's not recommended mostly if you don't know what combinations of classes to pick. Since you now know what classes pairs well with Soulblade it's not that hard. So i would recommend you multiclass. Mostly because the single-class is abit bland and boring with soulblade.
You need to attack with weapons in order to gain Focus as a Cipher. Wizards have no "weapon-based" abilities and Ciphers only have Soul Annihilation. So this isn't the greatest combo.
I don't undestand why Perception is so important and might not. I mean yeah, if you don't hit you don't get focus but if your hits are weak you also don't get much focus. What I'm missing here?
6 років тому
Nothing, these guides are not definitive :) I almost universally go for max might, and rest split in per/int. You just want to do damage, to do more damage! :D
with perception your spells land better too. Important for the CC spells. Might stacks additively with other sources of damage like the cipher whip or rogue sneak attack etc. perception basically stacks multiplicative with those.
6 років тому
LaNague might is actually multiplicative aswell, it takes all the other bonuses first and then it multiplies it by might coefficient
I am nearing the end of pillars of eternity 1. Throughout the demonic and antichrist leading have been very convicting and I think I should quit Is there a great game system like this available that wasn't developed, purposely by the devil?
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Why do you say "albeit from melee range" when talking about mindstalker? Doesn't rogue's sneak attack work with ranged weapons too?
Troubadour beguiler sound like a solid combo?
@Nathan Barnhart
That's what I'm doing atm. Dual pistols. I can pretty much cast cipher spells near non-stop and drop an incantation whenever shit gets heavy. I love thinking of my dude all decked out like a pirate singing shanties with a shit eating grin over two pistols blasting away.
Having recently started playing a cipher in Pillars of Eternity, I am highly excited for the PS4 release soon. These guides are immensely helpful.
The cipher was a constable with a quick draw and fast aim with firearms...but that wasn't good enough to save everyone, and it took his toll on his mind.
This served to unlock his psionic abilities, and this lead directly into the beginning of the game.
nice rp
nice rp
Great video, thank you. I never really got a feel for how the cipher played until now.
Very professional guides, thanks for the content.
Soul Blade could multiclass very well with the Shattered Pillar Monk as well. Both gain power sources through damage, you can get even more damage to your melee hits with Transcendent Suffering (as long as it stacks with Soul Whip). Also, punching your way through the game is super fun!
Cast Swift Strikes at the begining to hit faster, build a lot of focus to use Soul Annihilation for high damage and then use the wounds you have accumulated in the process to deal extra damage and even get some disables. You won't be using Cipher spells frequently with this one, but the damage output would be amazing, specially with High Int and Lightning Strikes to enhance the duration and DPS gained from Swift Strikes.
Anyway, thanks for the guides, you already helped me a lot with Divinity: Original Sin 2.
Thanks for all those videos, great stuff ! It helps a lot to decide what class to choose.
( You forgot to change the description of the video, it is still "Fighter Class Guide...")
Edit: well that was quick :D
It should also be mentioned that the Cipher has some very powerful buffs, but most of them are at higher levels. For example, they get a level 5 buff/debuff called "Borrowed Instinct," it targets an enemy and if it hits, the enemy gets -8 intellect and perception, and you get +20 to accuracy and all defenses. There's a level 8 buff/debuff called "Time Parasite," which decreases the action speed of an enemy by 50% while increasing your action speed by 50%, and it jumps to 5 other enemies.
So a single class Cipher and Soul Blade can be pretty effective since you'll get those buffs at an earlier level.
By the time the cipher has done damage enough to get there, most of the hard enemies will be gone and those abilities will not be a game changer compared to some other first strikes of other classes. PO2 has ways to build around that as PO1 was pretty limited to dps bursts with pistol switching. Then they made blights immune to piercing damage... hah, build became useless against blights then and there. Being able to cipher/rogue multi removes a lot of the class' problems.
A single class cipher, though, would just make it have the same pacing issues as before. Meaning, if the enemy is weak enough for you to do massive dps against it, you won't need those high level abilities nor can you sustain/use them for long unless you just cleaned up a lot of boss trash and are fighting the boss now.
A lot of the cipher's abilities are based on hitting targets. The most difficult fights are the ones that the targets are not easily hit by anyone. This creates an interesting pacing for the single class cipher, as the difficulty of the fight gets higher, the cipher gets more crippled. Even though it does have endurance in terms of abilities per encounter. For example, take borrowed instinct and the charms. When the enemies are so dangerous that you really need those abilities to hit, they do not, since those enemies have higher defenses. They need to be debuffed first. Now if they can target enemies that are charmed, at least they can now escalate off of that, but again that takes time that isn't getting focus and requires the party to tank more damage to wait or use some other survival method. That becomes a minor issue if the charmed enemies keep getting hit by wizard/druid aoes, when the cipher is waiting to recover before casting that buff by hitting the enemy. And then it has to wait for after the buff to get in range of the enemy. A lot of micro, same as rogue, but with less immediate punch.
The cipher single class would do major damage with dual wielding weapons, except it has problems tanking the hits when a rogue can immediately disengage and become invisible. A cipher/rogue can fix that issue on its own, but a single class cipher needs party aid to do that. So even though I started POE1 and finished first with a cipher, after going through a few patch iterations from 1.0 to third major patch rebalance, cipher became the class I most disliked for its pacing and limitations. The only cipher build I liked was the melee riposte reflection one that relied on items.
POE2 cipher is nearly the same, although they have addressed the focus issue with the whip skill split tree and a few other tweaks. Should be fine on difficulties other than POTD. Well Pillars 1 was fine too so long as it wasn't POTD. I only play tactical rpgs on some of the hardest difficulties. The Cipher in POTD POE1 was great at v 1.0, because there were so many enemies mobs that it took a party ages to finish them. Meaning the wizards and priests were already out of spells. That is no longer an advantage now that they have gone mostly with per encounter abilities. Josh's original idea of doing some kind of Pathfinder "Kineticist" knight warrior mage with the cipher didn't really work out. People usually just made cipher into a glass cannon. The best cipher spells were the ones that cast the fastest, as it gave the cipher the most time to do dps to get focus.
Thanks for this video, I couldn't figure out how ciphers work
I'm a little late to the party but I tried a blunderbus/cc build from PE1. They changed it so that you don't proc soul whip from each pellet so you gain way less focus. Cipher/rogue sounds interesting.
Deepest thanks. Really admire your effort!
Great job with those guides! Thanks a lot
For the future. If at all. You pick classes after race so I had to listen to the whole video then use what you said backwards
I am not sure why at 4:25 you say "albeit from melee range". All of the sneak attack goodness applies to ranged too, even more so due to the take-your-pick opportunism that the ranged combat offers. In fact, Beguiler Mindstalker is my favorite main class so far. Massive focus gains and exploding enemies on demand with Crippling Strikes from level 1, enabling sneak attacks for the rest of the party plus disables and charms with the rest of the spells... And the Beguiler Focus gain means I cannot waste Focus fast enough, so I sprinkle in non-deception fast-cast spells like Mind Blades too. Reloading weapons also seem to work better than bows/mage sticks, because you are ready to cast at any moment during reload and the combat openers deal such gigantic damage. With a bow, you have to wait through the long recovery, so its autoattacks hamper critical timing of certain spells (e.g. Mental Binding enemies at moments when they cannot melee anything from their current position; or charming a menacing enemy ASAP before they evaporate a squishy on your team).
Well this changes how I'll play my Cipher once I finish PoE 1.
unbroken soulblade or devoted soulblade those are the ones im goin for thanks this made my decision...now to buy the game
I love your guides, but why are certain races suggested based on stats provided? The stats provided by races are generally a flat boost of +2 ability points, since you can just move back and forth through the creation screens and adjust where you want the points to go anyway; an elf's +1 dex/per can be manipulated into being +2 might or int if you wanted, making their core racial abilities (freeze/burn reduction for pale elf, for example) far more meaningful than the stats regardless of the race chosen. The same applies for land of origin, where you can just back up and redistribute that attribute point wherever you wanted it to go.
Racial ability bonuses are not just that. Standard maximum for ability points is 18. With +2 perception for Orlans for example you can bump it to 20. It becomes important if you do min/max start. So just look at it as a bonus or penalty to a maximum of 18. Same goes for origin. If you want an Orlan with 18 Might you need to pick origin that gives you +1 Might. Otherwise your max will be 17, since Orlans have -1 Might penalty.
Alters the max and mins.
spoiler?
how much of this helps me with pillars of eternity 1 without teaching me stuff that isn't existing in the first game?
I'M trying to see if I can find out something that helps me with the mother or the devil of chohac or whatever she is called. I don't play them very actively but beside the dragons and one certain enemy group I beat most of my enemys without doing much.
I'm not even sure if I play Kanna right, but he is one of the last to die often enough and I gave him some summonings. I might need to reroll some characters since I tried to have a lockpicker and ended up with training three of them in skill they don't need.
Also I figured out my druid isn't effektive from what I heard. I just didn't knew that the game works this and that way when I started. Now I only have a problem with leveling up Peleginas Sword because she needs to die 5 times in order for it to gain the next level.
What about soul blade cipher and monk? Will such multi work?
How well does No Subclass Cipher work with Druid? I couldn't decide which of those two I would play for game 1 but now I could be both? I know druid doesn't click that well with focus build because of casting but it does have spiritshift and a lot of strong buffs, debuffs and AoE attacks, which is what cipher lacks.
Inquisitor paladin + Whispers of the endless paths + Flames of devotion or Soul annihilation = Guts from Berserk
what is 'Whispers of the endless paths"?
you can combine the fragments of the Whispers of Yenwood and The Blade of the Endless Paths
Guts doesn't have any magic or special abilities.
I'd say multiclass Barb with fighter and you'd get Guts
Max dex/perception dual wielding mindstalker is friggin AMAZING. You trade single hit damage for speeedy dps which in the long run will do more damage. Since trash mobs die in one or two hits regardless I found highhh as shit dex made my mindstalker much more dps heavy
Are the whip upgrades mutually exclusive or can I pick both? :)
Exclusive, can't pick both
YES!
First
Mindstalker FTW
Isn't Mindstalker that dude who has a show in Las Vegas
Looking at playing a Mindstalker when I start later ... question is, Beguiler or Soul Blade subclass?
Great class guides. Any chance of a Ai behaviour guide? So many options and not explained well in game put me off using it.
This! 100% this. Especially with example guides for Tank, Healer, Disables. That AI behavior menu is very in-depth
Hey man I worthy if you can do ranger/summoner gameplay?
What happened to the soul whip?
I dont see your character's weapon glowing during combat?
Did they removed the purple glow from soul whip in deadfire?
Hi, do you know if you multiclass with ranger if the attack that make your animal companion give you some focus back?
nope
Does CIpher work well with Monk class?
I'm not a fan of pure ciphers, toi slow to pick up on most combat encounters. Multiclass with rogue is very cool tough, and I'll soon test with broken pillar monk.
Great series, but for the love of god, please get priest guide out!
It's coming today!
I love cipher but it's kind of a bummer they got rid of the purple aura over your weapon, now it's just a blue wisp thing when you hit an enemy.
I cannot decide between cipher or paladin
Do multiclass of both. Inquisitor is a fantastic blend of damage and survivability. Also, quite versatile. And lastly - some great roleplaying potential.
Would be feasible to make a melee Soulblade/Stalker Ranger?
yep it would
Fextralife how would it compare to being paired with a fighter?
Is there a way to skip the intro to try different classes quickly
nope. can't even save before the table..You have to slog through it every. single. damn. time.. Hopefully they will adress/change it somehow, either letting us save before table, or flat out skip the intro walk..
I think you should be able to open character creation through cheats using console like in PoE1
*MY CLASS*
I just started a Cipher/Paladin build using the Arquebus and I'm having a lot of fun playing it but I was wondering if the two-handed skill affects two-handed firearms?
It does indeed. You can verify this by pausing the game after you've hit a target, and mousing over the text of your Hit in the combat box and holding Shift. It will show you how your damage was calculated and you will see Two-Handed Style factors in :)
Oh wow thanks, I didn't know about that :)
Ugh I wanna play a soulblade, but not having played PoE 1 and the warnings in the game I'm not sure about multiclassing. Is it a neccesary thing when picking Soul Blade as it seems here.
If you don't Multiclass when you choose Soul Blade you will have Soul Annihilation as your only melee ability. So it'll be auto attack, cast spell, auto attack, cast spell, and maybe sometimes auto attack, auto attack Soul Annihilation.
Multiclassing is not that hard. It's not recommended mostly if you don't know what combinations of classes to pick. Since you now know what classes pairs well with Soulblade it's not that hard. So i would recommend you multiclass. Mostly because the single-class is abit bland and boring with soulblade.
Work a cipher-wizard work well. I know early game is is bad but i was wondering about late game
You need to attack with weapons in order to gain Focus as a Cipher. Wizards have no "weapon-based" abilities and Ciphers only have Soul Annihilation. So this isn't the greatest combo.
yeah... i though so. but the theme seems cool. lol
I don't undestand why Perception is so important and might not. I mean yeah, if you don't hit you don't get focus but if your hits are weak you also don't get much focus. What I'm missing here?
Nothing, these guides are not definitive :) I almost universally go for max might, and rest split in per/int. You just want to do damage, to do more damage! :D
Perception isn't just about hitting with attacks. It also boosts your crit chance.
with perception your spells land better too. Important for the CC spells.
Might stacks additively with other sources of damage like the cipher whip or rogue sneak attack etc. perception basically stacks multiplicative with those.
LaNague might is actually multiplicative aswell, it takes all the other bonuses first and then it multiplies it by might coefficient
where's your priest vid?
^ This. Its the only one missing now.
It's coming today.
To sum it up, hit people, cast stuff.
If I go mindstalker beguliar, what rouge subclass should I use?
Lizzards with 4 arms and shooting with arbalests!
Hi
Hi
I am nearing the end of pillars of eternity 1. Throughout the demonic and antichrist leading have been very convicting and I think I should quit
Is there a great game system like this available that wasn't developed, purposely by the devil?