Players wishing to play as the Ascendant Subclass of Cipher will have two styles of play available to them. When Ascended fades Focus is reduced to 0. Penalty: While not Ascended, receive a -1 penalty to Cipher Power Level. AscendantĪsecendants make excellent Single Class “spell casters” because of their high Focus, and very good Multiclass “hybrid” characters because of their bonus to weapon damage.īonus: Reaching Max Focus grants the “Ascended” effect temporarily, increasing the Cipher’s Power Level by 3 and reducing Power Focus cost of spells by 100% for 25 seconds. Soul Whip does not turn off at Max Focus and provides +20% damage with weapons when at Max Focus. Let’s take a look at what the Cipher Subclasses are, and talk a bit about what sort of Builds you can make with them. Soul Whip’s effect changes based on your Subclass (which you can see in the table at the bottom of this section). Soul Whip not only increases the damage of the Cipher’s attacks, but also dictates the rate at which they gain Focus with these attacks. Ciphers gain bonus damage to their weapon attacks because of a Passive Ability called Soul Whip. In this section we’re going to take a look at the Subclasses of the Cipher and see why you might choose one of them, or not. Shred generally deal damage, Deception usually Crowd Control and Echo are usually Buffs. You can choose Abilities of each type or specialize in one if you wish, and this is where Subclasses come in. Echo Abilities generally buff a party member in some manner, either by increasing their stats, defense, or even creating a damaging field around them. Deception Abilities generally cast a negative status effect of some kind on the target such as blindness or even charming them for a duration. Generally speaking Shred Abilities are your “damaging abilities” that deal damage directly to enemies. These Ability types are: Shred, Deception and Echo. We will take a look at these in the next section, but for now let’s focus on Abilities.Ĭiphers by and large have three Ability types that shape their Class (these are also affected to some degree by your Subclass). Ciphers have 3 Subclasses to choose from, or you can choose not to take a Subclass. How much Focus you begin combat with, how much your maximum is, and how much your spells cost are all affected by your Subclass. These numbers will increase every time you level up.Įach time a Cipher levels up they will gain not only new Abilities, but also the amount of Focus they begin combat with, as well as the maximum Focus they can have. You can see on the bottom left here the amount of focus I begin combat with (7) and the maximum Focus I can have (30). More powerful spells cost more Focus, so building Focus quickly is of the utmost importance. This means that Ciphers will have to balance the use of their spells and weapon attacks in order to be effective. Whenever they cast a spell they will subtract the Focus cost from their accumulated Focus, and each time they attack with a weapon they will gain Focus based on the damage they deal. Ciphers always begin combat with a fixed amount of Focus and have a maximum they can acquire during each encounter. They are a solid choice for the player who wishes to have a “pure caster” Build, or for the player that would like to augment their martial Class with some spells and buffs.Ĭiphers use Focus for their resource, just like they did in the previous game, and Focus allows them to cast spells. Because they gain bonus damage with Weapons, they lend themselves very well to Multiclassing, particularly with Classes that use Weapons as their primary means of damage. Cipher Builds and How They WorkĬiphers in Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire are a “spell casting” Class that specializes in dealing damage, controlling and debuffing enemies, and buffing their fellow party members. They are not as overwhelming as you would think at first glance. Ciphers have great flexibility in what they can do and have some amazing Crowd Control abilities.
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