Is a melee Seer (Cipher + Ranger) viable?

[Nero]

Hi at all.

I know that I'm a bit late for this game. But still I'd like some advice.

I had a lot of fun with the Cipher in part 1, in melee with Antipathetic Field.
So usually a Mindstalker should be the way to go.

But since in this game there would be the option to play as a melee Cipher and have a pet my mind is telling me to go that route.


Is this viable or is the Seeker only useful as a ranged toon.

Any tips regarding the stats and subclasses?

[wespe___o=/;;;:*]

Melee Ranger = weak ..combined with a squishy class like Cipher you need really good Gear

-> Seer can be very strong as mid-range caster, but in melee combat Ranger is way behind strong martial classes

[ZirzoR]

_______________________________________________

Now onto the main point:

Any class combination is viable in this game, including a melee ranger or a melee cipher, if you're playing with magran's fires, this is not recommended, but if its just regular softcore Path of the Damned or below, then its viable, just like with anything else, you can outlevel and outscale the content in this game super easily, playing with scaling on is only recommended if you feel like the game is too easy. (But fighting level 20 normal boars that just takes longer to kill makes no sense to me, so I always have it off)

As a melee cipher, you could go for the polearm route and use the frontline as a meatshield and your pet, you can also play as a Ghost Heart subclass and summon your pet into battle instead, and not being tied down if the pet somehow dies, because of the bond debuff.

If not I recommend stalker to make yourself tankier and dual-wielding, so that you can wield heavy armor without too much penalty.

Rangers also have access to a "full attack" called wounding shot, when used it will hit with both weapons, and you can make it more accurate so crits are on the table aswell more often with accurate wounding shot ontop of getting marked for the hunt, so you can chain kill in the frontline and keep the accuracy train pumpin.

With this sort of setup tho, I do recommend to have a druid/cleric on the team to help with buffs and debuffs, so that you dont take too much dmg and can keep yourself topped off, since the ranger class doesn't have that much going for it when it comes to defense or abilities for themselves when multiclassed.

As for the cipher part, you could go with Soul Blade to have a true damage nuke at the ready, since you'll be in melee anyways, any other ones could be Ascended, so you go into melee until you hit the full resource pool and then mass cast spells until the ascension runs out and rinse & repeat. (Help with having a rogue etc in the party to benefit from all the debuffs that ciphers can provide, mass paralyse, mass flank, etc, sneak attacks are OP)

But I dont recommend to solo frontline with this, you probably want atleast 2 others with you in the front, so you dont take all the hits, you'll be quite fragile when casting aswell, so you really dont want to have too much attention.

But I dont want to say too much, you'll have to experience the game and the build yourself somewhat, but I know for a fact that any combination of classes in the game can solo the game, regardless if they're ranged or melee, so with a full party its even easier.

I exclusively play on PotD, so take that as you will, any other difficulty lower then that, you can do literally anything you want and even on PotD you can experiment with builds, so dont listen to wespe, he just cant grasp the game, he calls a bunch of things unviable, which just isn't true at all.

Have a nice day.

[valium]

Not only would it be viable, but it could be pretty strong if you go something like Stalker. The caveat is that this will require A LOT of micromanagement, and will be squishy at low levels until you and your pet can get some meat on your bones.

Not the best melee class combo, but it can work well enough even on potd.

[valium]

For an actual build example, how I would build it for potd:

Cipher/Ranger -- Soul Blade/Stalker

I dont have the game installed atm so I cant really give a full stat rundown, but it would be to max out (or as close to as you are comfortable with) dex and perception at character creation, then min max the rest to taste. In RTwP (real time with pause) dex is king, and for both rangers and ciphers, you want high perception for the hit chance for cipher spells, and stacking ranger accuracy boosts for crit chance.

Soul Blade is the only Cipher subclass I go biting whip on, mostly because I want to get the most out of my auto attack damage, since I am mainly using focus for Soul Annihilation. Soul Annihilation is a primary attack, so it wont use both hands if you dual wield, so it makes more sense to go with a shield for a tanky build, or a 2 handed weapon for damage.

So the idea is mainly to boost your auto attacks with biting whip, when you max out on focus, lay something out with a Soul Annihilation, rinse and repeat. This simplifies that portion of the combat so you can spend your focus (get it) on microing the pet. You will want to start combat with Borrowed Instinct, which you should get extremely early in the fight, it is only 50 focus, and the boost to accuracy and defenses will power your steamrolling of everything. I also add Disintegration into the mix for bosses, because that spell is just ridiculously good.

On the Ranger side of things, Marked for the Hunt and Accurate Wounding Shot will be your bread and butter. Try to keep targeting whoever the Marked for the Hunt jumps to next. Vicious Companion, Merciless Companion, and Predator's Sense are the mandatory pet buffs. With Accurate Wounding Shot fueling the dot prerequisite for Predator's Sense. Defensive Bond and it's upgrade are a bit of a trap, it only works for aoe attacks and you should be actively just avoiding those altogether. Stalker's Link might be too much of an investment to fit into your build, you only have so many ability points, but the 10 accuracy is nice.

Let me state that this isnt the best build ever, but it will be more than sufficient for general potd play, and what I think would be a fun build for a potd worthy melee cipher/ranger.

[Nero]

Thank you for your comments so far.
I didn't intend to start some heated stuff.


I found some stat spread for a Stalker / Soulblade.

MIG: 15
CON: 12
DEX: 13
PER: 14
INT: 10
RES: 14

Is this viable? Int seems a bit low.

Or should I go for the Ghostheart and use the pet as target for spells?

[valium]

Unless you are specifically going for increased aoe size or effect duration, int is not important. Res doesnt need to be so high, you can stack a lot of deflect from a lot of other sources.

Ghostheart is fine, but it feels like a waste to me. A major part of the ranger class is the pet so you might as well just go for something else at that point.

[Nero]

Thanks again for the input.

Ghost Heart isn't what my role-playing self likes,... but casting a spirit right into the backline and then use Ectopsychic Echo seems tempting