Melee cipher, best weapon choice/style?

[Diomedes]

So what are your guys opinions on the best weapon type for Melee cipher? I am not sure whether to go Dual wield with something like steliteos or something else.. Was trying out two handed with Tall Grass Pike as well as Tidefall but not sure..
Or maybe sword and shield with the soul bound bash shield?

[Protagoras]

2h Axe, like a savage.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

Which difficulty mode?

What companions?

Good is to start combat with a single shot of a heavy ranged weapon like arquebus or arbalest as to create initial Focus, then switch to a melee weapon that hits reliably and/or hits with high damage. If you decided to invest into Ruffian type weapons, you could wield Sabres, Clubs, Stilettos, but the fire arms of that weapon type group would be Pistols and Blunderbusses. The latter wouldn't be a bad choice,

With regard to difficulty mode, the extra +12 Accuracy bonus if wielding one single-handed weapon only can be quite convincing, because on PotD mode, foes get increased defenses. Sure, you can gain an Accuracy bonus via potions or support spells, but the other one is stacking.

[Diomedes]

Originally posted by D'amarr from Darshiva:

Which difficulty mode?

What companions?

Good is to start combat with a single shot of a heavy ranged weapon like arquebus or arbalest as to create initial Focus, then switch to a melee weapon that hits reliably and/or hits with high damage. If you decided to invest into Ruffian type weapons, you could wield Sabres, Clubs, Stilettos, but the fire arms of that weapon type group would be Pistols and Blunderbusses. The latter wouldn't be a bad choice,

With regard to difficulty mode, the extra +12 Accuracy bonus if wielding one single-handed weapon only can be quite convincing, because on PotD mode, foes get increased defenses. Sure, you can gain an Accuracy bonus via potions or support spells, but the other one is stacking.

What weapon would you recommend for a single weapon?

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

If you absolutely believe you need to choose in advance, better browse the Wiki a bit. There are so many weapons, choose what you like:

https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Weapons#See_also
https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Soulbound_items

[LHGreen]

Well, Cipher is all about building up focus to use your spells as quickly as possible, so you'd probably want something really fast with the highest attack rate, right? Dual wield sounds like the best option because you're attacking much faster, and even if your accuracy isn't terribly high you're getting a lot more chances to land a blow. And to maximize that, you'll probably want to get the dual wield style talent asap (say around level 2 or 4, with the other point likely, but not necessarily, spent on either the bonus soul whip damage or the bonus focus gain), use armor with a low attack speed penalty but decent-ish DR (padded and hide armor come to mind), and use a weapon with a fast attack rating. So, to compensate for not having the accuracy that comes with single wielding weapons, you may want to choose a weapon focus talent, and a weapon that has an inherent accuracy bonus.

Now, it's Daggers, Rapiers, and Clubs which have a +5 bonus to accuracy. Flails convert a significant percentage of grazes into hits, which can have a similar effect. The other two weapons with a fast rating are Stilettos, which have 3 DR penetration, and Hatchets, which give a (stacking, for some reason) +5 to deflection. Stilettos and Clubs are both Ruffian focus weapons, and Rapiers and Daggers are both Noble focus. Hatchets are peasant focus and Flails are Adventurer focus, so you may want to forgo those two for efficiency of talents, since you can only get so many and only so often. You gotta remember to build characters along every step, after all, not just with the end-goal in mind as your "profit" and everything before that as your "????". So you'd probably want either the Ruffian or Noble weapon focus talent, if any, and if you choose one you'll probably want to stick mostly with weapons in that category. Both of those categories have some nice unconventional ranged options too (multi-damage-type implements for Noble, and DR and veil piercing guns for Ruffian), if you want or need to change up your tactics a bit.

Put it all together, and it looks like dual wielding Clubs, Rapiers, and/or Daggers would be the way to go, in order to balance getting the most attacks and landing the most hits/crits so that you can build your focus as quickly as possible. Since Ciphers can get a psychic blade (specifically Daggers) creating spell in the DLC which benefit from the Noble weapon focus, you may want to choose that. Gear that's exclusive to Ciphers (and one kind of drug that has an effect which only works on them, if you're into that) which increases their focus gain is a good idea, too. And if need be, you can switch up your styles a bit. Use two hatchets if you want to fight more defensively and boost your deflection by 10 points, have both weapons either do the same damage type to take advantage of a DR weakness or do different damage types to be prepared for the unexpected, use flails if you're successfully landing attacks but they're more grazes than hits, etc. Be versatile.

...But there's just one little problem. I think (although I'm not certain, and I've never bothered to look it up) that the amount of focus you gain is actually tied to the amount of damage you do, and those weapons are very lacking in power. All the accuracy in the world is worth jack-♥♥♥♥♥♥♥-♥♥♥♥ if you're not doing enough damage to have an effect, or in this case, to build focus fast enough. However, even while staying within a weapon focus boundary, there's options. Noble has Maces, for example, which do penetrate DR and do better damage than the other melee weapons in that category, with less speed. Ruffian has Stilettos, which also penetrate DR, and Sabres, which do bonus damage and have the same benefits and drawbacks as Maces when compared to the faster melee weapons in that category. Adventurer has Estocs, which are two-handed and will be MUCH slower, but are very powerful and have DR penetration. So you'll be gaining focus in larger, single leaps, which is a much bumpier rate than a constant stream, but it could be as good as or better than dual wield for focus gain in the long run, depending on what enemy you use it on. Or you can ignore the weapon focus and the slight accuracy gain (which is too minor a benefit anyway, imo, but it can still make a crucial difference sometimes) entirely, so that you can favor even greater versatility, in which case you have a lot more options open to you, but weapon focus has some pretty good versatility already. It really depends on what you want to do with it.

What you always need to keep in mind is that a Cipher's main weapon is their spells, not their armaments, and that's what you need to be considering. With one notable exception (which I mentioned earlier), Cipher spells don't gain an accuracy bonus based on weapon styles. As a Cipher, the tools you're using really are just that: tools, a means to an end, in order to achieve a goal, not necessarily the goal in and of themselves. Don't get bogged down in weapon choices for any reason other than maximizing your Cipher's potential to cast spells. This could mean that spell-casting weapons and gear should always be carefully considered, though. And I should warn you, this is just my opinion for a very standardized melee Cipher, not an expert assessment for a very specific, specialized type of melee Cipher build, or a PotD solo Cipher, or anything like that. Guiding someone through that would be WAY more in-depth than anything I've gone into here.



TL;DR: You'd maybe want to build a melee Cipher in the same way you'd want to build a speedier type of Rogue. But there's different considerations you have to keep in mind, despite the similarities.