Early on I'd probably recommend taking said wizard along, but once you have a couple more companions I would say you can ditch him. If you can handle the fights without a second caster and don't feel a need to explore all the companions' content, just drop him off at inn/stronghold. The game compensates you xp-wise for every companion below the party limit, so it won't gimp you terribly much. Plus you could replace him with some custom character if you prefer a fuller party.
Good to know. Thanks for this. My personal preference is a six person party, so as soon as I can afford that, I'll be maxing out. It's just the way I role (play).
He is normally the one left standing in my tougher fights. While everyone is unconscious he is barely at half his life.
Then your aggro is too spread out. Make your tank run into the fight whilst everyone else is using ranged weapons, turn on his engage 3 enemies power, if possible, position your tank in doorways.
Teleporters always try to teleport next to wizards, so prepare for that.
Considering only the NPCs in the game, i.e. no hired mercenary, what party do you guys think would be better for a rogue main? Right now I am going with Eder, Pallegina, Durance, Kana and Alloth, but it does not seem to work as well as I expected, with many fights finishing with only 1 character standing up.
@mlnevese Glad that you've finally decided to try a rogue. As you probably know, this is the class I've chosen for my first character and I've been impressed by her so that I haven't even thought about a restart.
She absolutley wrecks everything. The key is in positioning and using other party members abilities to your advantage. Once the enemies are either engaged or in some way stunned/paralyzed the rogue turns them into meat. I haven't tried any custom companions yet, the ones the game provides work well enough.
I think the Rogue might be one of the strongest classes in the game if used correctly. She does about 40% of my party's total DMG. She requires a lot of micro-managing but I like that.
The first person in combat is always, I mean ALWAYS, my tank - Eder.
Once he has all the attention, I drop a few crowd control spells from my mage - Aloth. I make enemies blind (Curse Of Blackened Sight), make them vulnerable (Expose Vulnerabilities) and then my rogue enters.
I don't think a lot of options can really match a dual-wielding rogue in single target damage output with this set-up. I keep crowd-controling enemies, keep the tank in the middle of everything, and use my rogue to quickly finish enemies, one by one.
I also have several anti-engagement and escape options that can help greatly to switch targets or get a better place for an attack.
Shadowing Beyond - to break an engagement and make the rogue invisible for 10 seconds, which I spend to get to a new enemy and sneak attack it.
Escape - to breaka an engagement by diving out of range to a selected location.
And later Coordinated Positioning - to break an engagement and instantly switch the rogue's position with a target. Works with Eder a lot.
With those options the rogue is probably the most mobile combat unit.
My cleric - Durance - helps to increase the damage output with his buffs and casts Pillars of Faith on group of enemies.
My chanter - Kana - uses Rime and Frost phrase - the icy traps work great with my rogue constantly moving through the battlefield.
At last, my ranger - Sagani - supports my rogue from the distance. They work wonderfully together. With her arrows she can attack the same opponent my rogue does. This pair works wonders against enemy mages and priests.
Also, Sagani's fox can be a somewhat 0.5 tank for a while.
Mind you, I still haven't tried other companions and thus their classes but actually I don't see a weak link in my party.
@bengoshi We have the same party setup, class-wise: Fenor (PC) - Chanter Eder - Fighter Rhygar* - Rogue Durance - Priest Dyrgath* - Ranger Aloth - Wizard
I wonder if some of my troubles come from years of playing D&D games and the way Pillars does some things in a way that goes against D&D conventions. If I think of paladins and wizards in Pillars the same way I think in a D&D game it just will not work.
I am still playing around with the classes and races and having real difficulty on making a monk that works without giving him weapons and heavy armor, which completely defeats the point of having a monk in the pary, IMO. Any hints or tips?
One trick I have found if you don't want a tanky monk is you can use the Dangerous Implements ability to gain wounds by shooting people with a wand.
I agree with that sentiment Mlnevese. I also run fast mode (d) when not in combat and hit (s) for slow mode as soon as i enter combat. That helps reduce the elapsed time between pauses, and even lets me pause a bit less.
@the_spyder I mained a cipher and found that a monk tank companion early on was very beneficial. i now have left him in the stronghold to do adventures while i run only npc companion party to get the full story effect. Theorycrafting here but 2 wizards could be effective, however low level spells are not great overall. I find many tough to target w/o hitting my team once battle has begun. Letting the engagement sort out and then moving each to a side of the main battle and spraying the cone fire spell from both sides may be too effective, actually. That seems like it would trivialize most fights, and if a wizard gets engaged, the withdraw spell that Durance has is a lifesaver.
I would like to say that my party's life improved 100% by turning on autopause every 2 seconds and adopting a custom formation
The more you pause in real-time pause based games, the better you do. Every two seconds is actually a fairly long time. If you watch Youtube videos of people doing the hardest BG2 fights on Insane with SCS installed, it's rare that the player isn't pausing every second. Going as long as five seconds on any difficulty above normal in Pillars is a recipe for disaster.
@jjstraka34 I'm actually using a combination of autopauses (2 seconds battle, spell used, etc.) it's now common that I will unpause the the game and it immediately triggers another pause.
I think the BG series has a better learning curve in this aspect. You barely need to pause at first and by the end of ToB it's basically a stop-motion picture
So with me beating Bravely Default and Dragon Age: Inquisition I'm now focusing on PoE as my next game to finish. Doing the Endless Paths dungeon (I think that's what it's called) and I'm taking Grieving Mother instead of Eder. I equipped her with 2 exceptional swords that has one enchanted with vessel slaying and fire damage and the other spirit slaying and frost damage. I gave her the TWF talent as well.
Her vampiric abilities ARE AWESOME Stealing defenses and stats and then wearing light armor and attacking at the speed of sound. My next run HAS to be a Cipher. THEY'RE SO COOL.
I wish I could rename weapons. I'd have like Fleshflame and Soulchill as my weapon names.
I'm still trying to get a handle on some of the classes, trying not to treat them the same as I would in IE games. I really can't wrap my head around the chanter class...I just don't understand how to use their chants/phrases or how to set them up to cast their spells efficiently. I am starting to get a handle on the rogue. It took me a bit to figure out what to do with my other party members to set her (I hired a rogue henchwoman at the Black Hound) up to succeed. @bengoshi's comments above have given me a lot of food for thought.
@procco I'm only at lv 5 with Kana but it seems to be a tradeoff btwn chants and spells. The weaker chants are faster and therefore give faster access to spells, and the stronger chants take longer to give you spells but the effects are much better.
I only gain access to a spell during the harder fights, but that one cast usually is enough to turn the tide in my favor.
@procco I'm only at lv 5 with Kana but it seems to be a tradeoff btwn chants and spells. The weaker chants are faster and therefore give faster access to spells, and the stronger chants take longer to give you spells but the effects are much better.
I only gain access to a spell during the harder fights, but that one cast usually is enough to turn the tide in my favor.
That seems to be the case with their spells...they seem pretty bad-ass once you get to them. I guess my confusion is if I'm supposed to be doing any micromanaging to make getting the chants off more efficient, but it seems like Kana takes care of it all himself. But yeah, that summon skeleton spell has come in handy a few times to take the heat off my chats long enough to get them some healing and repositioning.
I'm trying chanter with barbarian now (lvl 5, other companions are standard). From the start I thought that barbarian is rather unimpressive. But I have to say, I was wrong. The "One Stands Alone" barbarian's ability is horribly OP. If 2 or more enemies engage your barbarian, she inflicts bonus damage, and the bonus damage is 20 to every hit, both direct hit and carnage AoE. My barbarian hits a single enemy for 3-4 points (due to high DR), but if there are two enemies, it's 23-24 AoE hits.
@procco I'm only at lv 5 with Kana but it seems to be a tradeoff btwn chants and spells. The weaker chants are faster and therefore give faster access to spells, and the stronger chants take longer to give you spells but the effects are much better.
I only gain access to a spell during the harder fights, but that one cast usually is enough to turn the tide in my favor.
That seems to be the case with their spells...they seem pretty bad-ass once you get to them. I guess my confusion is if I'm supposed to be doing any micromanaging to make getting the chants off more efficient, but it seems like Kana takes care of it all himself. But yeah, that summon skeleton spell has come in handy a few times to take the heat off my chats long enough to get them some healing and repositioning.
The Chants are very passive - just set up the ones you are going to use and forget about them. It's best to alternate between two since the effects overlap. The thing with a chanter is because their class abilities are so passive they need another job - either tank or ranged DPS usually, although they can do pretty much anything. Tanking has a good synergy with chants that affect enemies, ranged DPS with chants that buff the team. Late in the fight you get the chance to do awesome summons (the phantom is better than the skeletons), but just view them as a bonus, tanking or shooting things is what you should be focusing on most of the time.
Heya guys, so I've been buried in Pillars of Eternity now for the past week or so and I have some insights to share here (along with my character builds).
So, my first character (and the one I'm still playing mostly) is Lyrexia Amastran. She is loosely based on a DDO character of mine who is an elven cleric/rogue, an expert in tanking, lockpicking and trap disarming and a bit of a jack of all trades. I had to alter her concept for PoE, and I tortured myself over picking a class for her until I took the safe bet with fighter (specializing in Mechanics). She doesn't have as many tricks up her sleeve as the original concept, but if there's one thing I can build in any game system, it's a tank. I knew from the start I wanted to go with large shields, and early on I even used a hatchet for a while to maximize deflection (now I'm back to using a hatchet again since I found a cool magical one). She barely does damage, but after I got her some plate armor and enchanted it to fine quality, there are few things left in the world that injure her (enemy mages can... if they are really trying...). She's level 7 right now, and I've got over 100 deflection and reflex. Most of her stat points went into Perception and Resolve for high deflection rating (decent conversation options as well), with a few spared for Constitution. She can't solo like the original Lyrexia, but she stops an enemy offensive line cold with multiple engagements.
What else worked? I realized early on that I needed another frontlinesman, so I hired on my barbarian Thirik the Slayer. I don't see a lot of people extolling the virtues of the barbarian here, so let me set the record straight: barbarians are friggin' badass, especially when you are getting swarmed by xaurips. I made an aumaua with 20 Strength, put the remaining points largely into Dex and Con, and proceeded to take the "feats" and class abilities that cranked up damage potential. I won't lie, enemies with high deflection can be an issue for him, but there is no one else I'd rather have for finishing off swarms of goobs (well, besides Aloth). Barbarians take a lot of damage, and you should get used to the idea that they will get knocked out sometimes, but the sheer carnage of seeing 3 enemies hit for 20-30+ damage in one shot without a crit is pretty phenomenal. He uses two-handed weapons; let me be the first to say that the estoc kicks some serious ass. I eventually dropped him in favor of Sagani (and more plot/personality), but it was hard to let him go.
Anyway... I didn't really do much research going into the first run, so initially I also hired on a moon godlike cleric. From having her and Durance in the same party, I can attest that two priests is overkill, but the flying swarm of buffs was fun while it lasted.
Right now my party consists of Lyrexia, Aloth, Eder, Durance, Kana and Sagani, because those are the NPCs I have found so far. I like our setup pretty well, but I would be willing to try dropping Eder for another frontline fighter to see what they're like (I don't mind having two fighters, but variety is nice).
So after beating PoE now, next time I play it going to make a fully custom party. As always, going to go for a dark magicky custom party.
Thinking Piro as a nature godlike Orlan Cipher or Druid (In my D&D games Piro is a gnome with the blood of fey running through her veins. I figure a nature godlike Orlan is EXACTLY that!).
Val'myr will be a Pale Elf Chanter and I'll build him the same way I did the first time (He was the protagonist of my first run of the game).
Aria will be a Bleak Walker Death Godlike Paladin.
An unamed Wizard that focuses on necromancy-themed spells. I haven't thought of a name for him/her @_@.
An unamed Priest of the death deity guy. Same issue, can't think of a name.
Finally, Fae, a Wood Elf Rogue that focuses on poisons and traps.
So I guess I'll ask the questions of what are some cool names for a Necromancy themed wizard and priest, and then should my main character be a Cipher or Druid? Druid could fit with all their decay-themed spells but Ciphers are SUPER cool and use SOUL MAGIC! I'm leaning towards Cipher but want to know what you guys think.
How do people play Ciphers? I recently picked up the Grieving Mother and she just seems kind of meh in combat. So I'm curious how other people have used her from a combat standpoint.
How do people play Ciphers? I recently picked up the Grieving Mother and she just seems kind of meh in combat. So I'm curious how other people have used her from a combat standpoint.
I think they all follow the same paradigm. Use you spell/powers as quickly as possible, mostly crowd control and raw damage. The problem is that you still have to hit your opponents if you want to renew your focus pool. With the grieving mother, once the pool is depleted, it is not always easy to gain some focus points. It depends on the battles for sure, select the (minor and disabled) foes she can effectively hit. However with a pool of 100+ (140 ?) focus points or so, it gives you a large panel of spell sequences.
You have to hit and I guess this is one of the reasons why many players build their own ciphers as relatively competent fighters. There is a balance to be found with the intelligence points which will grant you a decent duration of the spell/powers. I also want to add that the cipher seems (or is) highly powerful at the beginning of the game due to the powerful spells they get at low levels but their preponderance decreases over time IMHO. This may influence the early reports about the class. (at the moment less than 5% of the game owners on steam have completed the game).
In my first game I used a wood elf archer with the slight bonus to hit but it seems most players select a non-tank, fast/light armor melee cipher. I also kept the grieving mother in a ranged role but I think that is not the best way if you can afford micro managing her and make sure she does not get engaged. The only battle were I needed a plan specifically for her was a group of vampires (not sure you want a spoiler here). With a decent lore it is also easy to transform her into a spell caster reading scrolls. That's almost a natural sequence anyway, disable then destroy.
Ciphers seem like a poor choice for melee combat, I like the ranged idea. Light (or no) armor, mostly avoid getting hit by traditional weapons... that leaves you lots of room for hitting with fast little hunting bow attacks. I have seen from Sagani that a hunting bow can still hurt people even at higher levels.
If you *must* be a melee cipher, what do you all think about going einhander (one-handed with nothing in the off-hand)? The bonus accuracy makes up for some of the class' shortcomings, and some weapons look a lot more tempting when your accuracy starts getting very high (a lone one-handed spear, for instance, gets accuracy - and subsequently crit chance - VERY high without totally sacrificing damage like a rapier, while a lone battle axe is more likely to land devastating critical hits). Not as sexy as dual-wielding, perhaps, but the soaring-high accuracy tempted me in another game to create a nonstandard fighter built around the idea (who maybe should have been a rogue, but I like the high innate defenses). Xammyl is a pale elf fighter who normally just wears clothes, has capped Dexterity and wields a spear einhander. He can't tank a swarm of foes terribly well (although he can switch out to hide armor when the need is pressing), but used more like a rogue he gets an impressive number of crits with good attack speed. In single combat he is pretty nasty; at level 1, when he uses his fighter accuracy power he hits 70 accuracy.
Anyway... do you think an einhander build would be better or worse for a cipher? I still like the ranged attack idea better as a first option.
Anyway... do you think an einhander build would be better or worse for a cipher? I still like the ranged attack idea better as a first option.
I am not convinced that a one handed weapon and no shield is a good solution despite the accuracy bonus. As a melee cipher I would go with a dual weapon setup to increase the attack rate (on disabled enemies). I clearly have not enough experience to be affirmative.
I like @decado suggestion with feats increasing accuracy and the gunner feat. The problem is to get a blunderbuss early enough.
Anyway... do you think an einhander build would be better or worse for a cipher? I still like the ranged attack idea better as a first option.
I am not convinced that a one handed weapon and no shield is a good solution despite the accuracy bonus. As a melee cipher I would go with a dual weapon setup to increase the attack rate (on disabled enemies). I clearly have not enough experience to be affirmative.
I like decado suggestion with feats increasing accuracy and the gunner feat. The problem is to get a blunderbuss early enough.
I seemed to have been summoned here by a decado tag. I wonder if he will get the notification as well.
Anyway... do you think an einhander build would be better or worse for a cipher? I still like the ranged attack idea better as a first option.
I am not convinced that a one handed weapon and no shield is a good solution despite the accuracy bonus. As a melee cipher I would go with a dual weapon setup to increase the attack rate (on disabled enemies). I clearly have not enough experience to be affirmative.
I like decado suggestion with feats increasing accuracy and the gunner feat. The problem is to get a blunderbuss early enough.
I seemed to have been summoned here by a decado tag. I wonder if he will get the notification as well.
I assume the post was edited after the fact to be decado and not deltago. If that is the case then he won't get any notification.
I didn't use Greiving Mother until around level 8-ish so my thing may be skewed. I kept her in light armor with dual swords. I used abilities that drain accuracy, deflection, and other stats from the enemy so they were a weak, missing, fool and Grieving Mother was a juggernaught of destruction XD
I LOVE Syphon-type abilities in games and Ciphers seem to have tons of them!
Comments
Teleporters always try to teleport next to wizards, so prepare for that.
She absolutley wrecks everything. The key is in positioning and using other party members abilities to your advantage. Once the enemies are either engaged or in some way stunned/paralyzed the rogue turns them into meat. I haven't tried any custom companions yet, the ones the game provides work well enough.
I think the Rogue might be one of the strongest classes in the game if used correctly. She does about 40% of my party's total DMG. She requires a lot of micro-managing but I like that.
The first person in combat is always, I mean ALWAYS, my tank - Eder.
Once he has all the attention, I drop a few crowd control spells from my mage - Aloth. I make enemies blind (Curse Of Blackened Sight), make them vulnerable (Expose Vulnerabilities) and then my rogue enters.
I don't think a lot of options can really match a dual-wielding rogue in single target damage output with this set-up. I keep crowd-controling enemies, keep the tank in the middle of everything, and use my rogue to quickly finish enemies, one by one.
I also have several anti-engagement and escape options that can help greatly to switch targets or get a better place for an attack.
Shadowing Beyond - to break an engagement and make the rogue invisible for 10 seconds, which I spend to get to a new enemy and sneak attack it.
Escape - to breaka an engagement by diving out of range to a selected location.
And later Coordinated Positioning - to break an engagement and instantly switch the rogue's position with a target. Works with Eder a lot.
With those options the rogue is probably the most mobile combat unit.
My cleric - Durance - helps to increase the damage output with his buffs and casts Pillars of Faith on group of enemies.
My chanter - Kana - uses Rime and Frost phrase - the icy traps work great with my rogue constantly moving through the battlefield.
At last, my ranger - Sagani - supports my rogue from the distance. They work wonderfully together. With her arrows she can attack the same opponent my rogue does. This pair works wonders against enemy mages and priests.
Also, Sagani's fox can be a somewhat 0.5 tank for a while.
Mind you, I still haven't tried other companions and thus their classes but actually I don't see a weak link in my party.
Fenor (PC) - Chanter
Eder - Fighter
Rhygar* - Rogue
Durance - Priest
Dyrgath* - Ranger
Aloth - Wizard
*custom-created companions.
@the_spyder I mained a cipher and found that a monk tank companion early on was very beneficial. i now have left him in the stronghold to do adventures while i run only npc companion party to get the full story effect. Theorycrafting here but 2 wizards could be effective, however low level spells are not great overall. I find many tough to target w/o hitting my team once battle has begun. Letting the engagement sort out and then moving each to a side of the main battle and spraying the cone fire spell from both sides may be too effective, actually. That seems like it would trivialize most fights, and if a wizard gets engaged, the withdraw spell that Durance has is a lifesaver.
I think the BG series has a better learning curve in this aspect. You barely need to pause at first and by the end of ToB it's basically a stop-motion picture
So with me beating Bravely Default and Dragon Age: Inquisition I'm now focusing on PoE as my next game to finish. Doing the Endless Paths dungeon (I think that's what it's called) and I'm taking Grieving Mother instead of Eder. I equipped her with 2 exceptional swords that has one enchanted with vessel slaying and fire damage and the other spirit slaying and frost damage. I gave her the TWF talent as well.
Her vampiric abilities ARE AWESOME
Stealing defenses and stats and then wearing light armor and attacking at the speed of sound. My next run HAS to be a Cipher. THEY'RE SO COOL.
I wish I could rename weapons. I'd have like Fleshflame and Soulchill as my weapon names.
I only gain access to a spell during the harder fights, but that one cast usually is enough to turn the tide in my favor.
So, my first character (and the one I'm still playing mostly) is Lyrexia Amastran. She is loosely based on a DDO character of mine who is an elven cleric/rogue, an expert in tanking, lockpicking and trap disarming and a bit of a jack of all trades. I had to alter her concept for PoE, and I tortured myself over picking a class for her until I took the safe bet with fighter (specializing in Mechanics). She doesn't have as many tricks up her sleeve as the original concept, but if there's one thing I can build in any game system, it's a tank. I knew from the start I wanted to go with large shields, and early on I even used a hatchet for a while to maximize deflection (now I'm back to using a hatchet again since I found a cool magical one). She barely does damage, but after I got her some plate armor and enchanted it to fine quality, there are few things left in the world that injure her (enemy mages can... if they are really trying...). She's level 7 right now, and I've got over 100 deflection and reflex. Most of her stat points went into Perception and Resolve for high deflection rating (decent conversation options as well), with a few spared for Constitution. She can't solo like the original Lyrexia, but she stops an enemy offensive line cold with multiple engagements.
What else worked? I realized early on that I needed another frontlinesman, so I hired on my barbarian Thirik the Slayer. I don't see a lot of people extolling the virtues of the barbarian here, so let me set the record straight: barbarians are friggin' badass, especially when you are getting swarmed by xaurips. I made an aumaua with 20 Strength, put the remaining points largely into Dex and Con, and proceeded to take the "feats" and class abilities that cranked up damage potential. I won't lie, enemies with high deflection can be an issue for him, but there is no one else I'd rather have for finishing off swarms of goobs (well, besides Aloth). Barbarians take a lot of damage, and you should get used to the idea that they will get knocked out sometimes, but the sheer carnage of seeing 3 enemies hit for 20-30+ damage in one shot without a crit is pretty phenomenal. He uses two-handed weapons; let me be the first to say that the estoc kicks some serious ass. I eventually dropped him in favor of Sagani (and more plot/personality), but it was hard to let him go.
Anyway... I didn't really do much research going into the first run, so initially I also hired on a moon godlike cleric. From having her and Durance in the same party, I can attest that two priests is overkill, but the flying swarm of buffs was fun while it lasted.
Right now my party consists of Lyrexia, Aloth, Eder, Durance, Kana and Sagani, because those are the NPCs I have found so far. I like our setup pretty well, but I would be willing to try dropping Eder for another frontline fighter to see what they're like (I don't mind having two fighters, but variety is nice).
Thinking Piro as a nature godlike Orlan Cipher or Druid (In my D&D games Piro is a gnome with the blood of fey running through her veins. I figure a nature godlike Orlan is EXACTLY that!).
Val'myr will be a Pale Elf Chanter and I'll build him the same way I did the first time (He was the protagonist of my first run of the game).
Aria will be a Bleak Walker Death Godlike Paladin.
An unamed Wizard that focuses on necromancy-themed spells. I haven't thought of a name for him/her @_@.
An unamed Priest of the death deity guy. Same issue, can't think of a name.
Finally, Fae, a Wood Elf Rogue that focuses on poisons and traps.
So I guess I'll ask the questions of what are some cool names for a Necromancy themed wizard and priest, and then should my main character be a Cipher or Druid? Druid could fit with all their decay-themed spells but Ciphers are SUPER cool and use SOUL MAGIC! I'm leaning towards Cipher but want to know what you guys think.
You have to hit and I guess this is one of the reasons why many players build their own ciphers as relatively competent fighters. There is a balance to be found with the intelligence points which will grant you a decent duration of the spell/powers.
I also want to add that the cipher seems (or is) highly powerful at the beginning of the game due to the powerful spells they get at low levels but their preponderance decreases over time IMHO. This may influence the early reports about the class. (at the moment less than 5% of the game owners on steam have completed the game).
In my first game I used a wood elf archer with the slight bonus to hit but it seems most players select a non-tank, fast/light armor melee cipher. I also kept the grieving mother in a ranged role but I think that is not the best way if you can afford micro managing her and make sure she does not get engaged.
The only battle were I needed a plan specifically for her was a group of vampires (not sure you want a spoiler here). With a decent lore it is also easy to transform her into a spell caster reading scrolls. That's almost a natural sequence anyway, disable then destroy.
If you *must* be a melee cipher, what do you all think about going einhander (one-handed with nothing in the off-hand)? The bonus accuracy makes up for some of the class' shortcomings, and some weapons look a lot more tempting when your accuracy starts getting very high (a lone one-handed spear, for instance, gets accuracy - and subsequently crit chance - VERY high without totally sacrificing damage like a rapier, while a lone battle axe is more likely to land devastating critical hits). Not as sexy as dual-wielding, perhaps, but the soaring-high accuracy tempted me in another game to create a nonstandard fighter built around the idea (who maybe should have been a rogue, but I like the high innate defenses). Xammyl is a pale elf fighter who normally just wears clothes, has capped Dexterity and wields a spear einhander. He can't tank a swarm of foes terribly well (although he can switch out to hide armor when the need is pressing), but used more like a rogue he gets an impressive number of crits with good attack speed. In single combat he is pretty nasty; at level 1, when he uses his fighter accuracy power he hits 70 accuracy.
Anyway... do you think an einhander build would be better or worse for a cipher? I still like the ranged attack idea better as a first option.
I like @decado suggestion with feats increasing accuracy and the gunner feat. The problem is to get a blunderbuss early enough.
I LOVE Syphon-type abilities in games and Ciphers seem to have tons of them!
I also played on normal difficulty.