In Pillars of Eternity, there are 11 playable classes, with the Cipher class being one of them. Ciphers are uncommon and often misunderstood individuals with extraordinary abilities. They rely on their mental power to control the mind and soul of their prey, using an ally’s or enemy’s essence as the focus for their magic. They have the ability to directly contact and manipulate another person’s soul and psyche, using an ally’s or enemy’s essence as the focus for their magic.
Wizards are the most powerful and flexible of the spellcasting classes, having roles in crowd control and striker. They can multi-class them with a fighter or rogue if desired. Ciphers have nearly as many Raw-type damage options as any other class, combined with more mind control options than any other. They are widely respected in most societies and are men and women of high education and extreme mental discipline. Lore bards are great at this, having all charm/suggestion/dominate spells, plenty of spell slots, and the ability to gain extra versatility by taking charms.
All arcane casters have good mind control options, but it might be best to decide based on what other abilities you want with your mind control. The Cipher class controls a mind up to 1 level above yours for 30 seconds, but does not work versus Demonic, Undead, or Mechanical beings. Shares diminishing returns with other classes.
📹 Pillars of Eternity – All 11 Classes Ranked (Full List!)
This video shows the final list for my full ranking of all 11 classes in Pillars of Eternity. This video also concludes my planned …
📹 How to Choose Your Class in Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire has 11 combat classes, each with unique abilities to define your character’s role in battle. If you’re …
Generally the class breakdown (IMHO) is as follows): Top Tier: Druid, Priest, Wizard Mid Tier: Paladin, Chanter, Cipher, Monk, Barbarian Bottom Tier: Rogue, Ranger, Fighter The reason it breaks down this way is because of how encounters and resting works. Per rest encounters are by design more powerful than per encounter ones. Thus, the per rest focused classes are more powerful and these happen to be the full casting classes in top tier. What makes them so powerful is, if they wish, they can unload their entire spellbook onto a fight which is disproportionalely more powerful than anything, anyone else can do because by design they are using all their per rest resources and per rest resources are inherently more powerful because they are supposed to be used less frequently. The breakdown is that because of how resting works, and how incredibly easy it is to rest, you can for the most part, blast through 2 or 3 fights with ease, sleep and be completely ready to go again with no adverse effect besides using a camping resource. Camping resources are not that rare either and you will come across plenty. What is also important to note is the main hurdles of the game are singular, large, difficult fights as opposed to lots of little fights. Your big hurdles are dragons, archmages, bounties and bosses, not really the trash mobs surrounding them. When you consider this, your per encounter designed classes just don’t stack up because they abilities are pound for pound weaker, because you are supposed to use them more.
Loved the articles, and your Pillars series is why I subscribed. I have only recently gotten into CRPGs, so I am grateful for a more straightfoward website that gives me a thourough understanding of the games and the races/classes. And yes, as someone else has said, I would love to see a series from you on Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire. That was the game that started the CRPG journey for me a few months ago and it would be awesome to hear your thoughts on the… everything.
On first playthrough I knew nothing, chose Paladin and was close to unkillable. I tried lots of different classes on a second before settling on a priest of Wael. I didn’t like that my only real priest option was Durant, and it has been a lot more active to play the priest rather than the paladin. And you’re so right about Chanters. I had no idea what I was doing for the longest time
The very first time I booted PoE 1 and was staring at the class selection, I was immediately drawn to the Cypher and never looked back, it’s so unique that I just fell in love with it, helps that I always play the class in heavy armor with a big two-handed sword, hood and cape at the front lines, all in black, just fits so thematically with the story as the Watcher.
Durance and Grieving Mother are class aside, probably the best thematically and lore-wise integrated companions in the game. I would take them with me on most adventures just for that if nothing else. I made the mistake of benching Durance for most of my first run and hadn’t really realized what i missed until my second run. Now i can’t imagine running without him. Him and grieving mother are just irreplaceable, mechanics be damned. As for the latter, IMO, what she lacks in banter with the other companions, she more then makes up with the Watcher, especially if you play him or her as a Cypher as well.
Good list. I agree with most of what you have here. The spellcasters (wizard, priest, druid) are definitely all top tier. The debuffs built into damaging spells are insane (blindness, charmed, petrified etc.), able to reduce enemy stats so low every attack and spell will hit while the enemy cant touch your party from low accuracy.
11 Ranger: very limited role-playing opportunity and leans heavily on the pet for gameplay flexibility. 10 Rogue: lots of role-playing opportunity but hampered by being the narrowest class in gameplay flexibility. 9 Barbarian: has the same problem as rogue but with a tiny bit more gameplay flexibility. 8 Monk: good role-play, decent flexibility and their fists are the best single handed dps in the game. Hurt by not being as flexible as the classes below. 7 Fighter: great role-play opportunity, solid flexibility. The biggest problem with Fighter is they don’t have the dps of a Monk or Barbarian nor are they as good of tanks as the Paladin. 6 Cipher: good role-play opportunity (though not nearly as good as some will tell you), but not as wide gameplay flexibility as any of the other classes from here on out. 5 Wizard: the king of combat flexibility, but more limited in role-play opportunity because canonically wizards are highly educated. Good luck trying to RP a rags to riches wizard. 4 Paladin: outstanding role-play opportunity, great gameplay flexibility. Lacks the umph of the final three classes, though. 3 Druid: outstanding gameplay flexibility but the most restrictive role-play opportunity of the tip 3 by a long shot. 2 Priest: outstanding gameplay flexibility and role-play opportunity. If they could take a hit better they’d be 1. 1 Chanter: Whatever you want to do in gameplay, a chanter can be built to do it. Because chanters don’t canonically need to be higher educated (wizard) or rural (druid/ranger) you can role-play them however you want.
I’ll be looking forward to when you dive in to Deadfire’s mechanics it blows Pillars 1 out of the water and has a lot more going on. Enjoyed this series especially the deep dive into the spells this information will help newbies or players returning who haven’t played in a while and need a refresher on how things work.
Got to be honest, I don’t want to play a support character as my main character. I just dont find the idea of casting a few buffs and heals and then doing totally underwhelming weapon attacks at all appealing, and if you want to go offensive with priests, then you will have exactly the same issue with the per rest limitation on your spells as any other caster. I want my main character to be the character I am manually controlling more than any other. Also, priests are amongst the least stat dependent of any class. If you arent casting many spells per fight, dexterity matters a lot less. Perception matters a lot less when you are mainly healing and buffing. Its basically intellect and might that are needed, and Durance has respectable scores in both. He also has the virtue of being an early acquisition. As for Cipher, its a role that I find a lot more fun to play for a main character being almost purely offensive, it has the huge benefit of no rest limitation whatsoever so you get to use your most interesting abilities every fight, great from a story standpoint as you say and the NPC cipher is acquired a lot later than Durance, isn’t great personality and interactivity wise and also is somewhat deficient stat wise. For ciphers, stats are extremely important, because there are no resource restrictions. Dexterity allows you to take more actions. Perception allows you to hit, and as almost everything you do is offensive, and you need to hit to generate resources in the first place, and as the difference between a miss/graze/hit/crit is huge for crowd control effects, this makes a massive difference.
Coming from Baldur’s Gate 3 i went with a fighter, and while everyone says its boring ive been having a blast with it especially since unlocking the Eldricth Knight sub class and multi classing 1 level of wizard. With all of that said I was very underwhelmed with fighter in this game and this article has helped me understanding why. Restarting and going with what I instinctively almost chosen at first the Cipher.
Currently in the early/mid game, and I’m loving the monk. Being able to spam decent damage AoE or big knockback attacks is tons of fun. Hiravias does crazy damage on each spell, but my monk is no slouch either due to her spam (helps having pumped dex and might). The big weakness right now is getting Wounds in the first place and I’m sure everyone else will scale better in the late game. I won’t disagree they’re the worst class (I have nowhere near the knowledge to say that), but at least I have to give props to them for designing this class in a way that is so fun to play. Saying they’re better in PoE2 just makes me more excited to play the sequel.
I tried a few times to play cipher, but every time I just constantly wish I was playing a wizard again. Thematically, being a powerful wizard who has their own castle, can peer into souls, and grants audience to travelors and lords … reactivity be damned. I still feel like a wizard. I think the game recognizes the watcher as it would a wizard already that wizard doesn’t need as many specific reactivity scenarios. That’s my mental gymnastics on it anyway. Easier to do if you have a strong wizard bias lol
The problem I find is that because other classes have access to stealth and lockpicking it kind of leaves rogue in a weird place. The only good thing they get is the flank sneak attack damage and backstab. They get absolutely wrecked up close close often the AI will target you the second you backstab, then trying to disengage you get slapped.
Great article. I have watched all your POE content many times. I have to disagree with you about the Fighter. I did a POTD run with my main as a Fighter and only took the companions. The Fighter is the best Off Tank in the game and can control the battlefield so well with knockdown, Into the Fray and Charge. The duel wielding Fighter is what the Rogue should have been.
Monk was a blast to play in deadfire, haven’t tried it in POE1. Id gladly play that game again if they’re had been some turn based update/patch that mimics the sequel but on console we dont have that :/ No way I’m going back to the real time action of the first after how much i enjoyed the turn based of the second.
My first play through I went with Monk… yeah that was a big mistake… I completely misallocated my stats as I was use to finess monk in Neverwinter Nights 2 where high dex = high AC to where you never get hit… yeah big mistake… I was a fan of Paladins which I had for my 2nd playthrough / POE2 playthrough. Some of the damage numbers you could get with crits + your special attack were bonkers!
I tried this game when it came out I didn’t really like it, baldurs gate and icewind dale felt a lot better but idk. I’m downloading it again with white march 2 see if it’ll take hold this time I didn’t like baldurs gate when I first tried it either then I got hard hooked around 2015 or so, maybe I just like games after they’ve been fully fleshed out and builds have been found. I took like a fish to water to tyranny in comparison but that’s because it was so fresh, while this game sort of follows old formulas for the most part. Tyranny in particular being a mage is op and I like games where magic is op. In pillars mages just seemed bottlenecked into melee fighters who have to buff themselves to be good. Are there any mods or anything you recommend for a playthrough like qol and things like that? I remember cypher seemed sort of fun too but idk the game just never wowed me. I’d like to run a standard party but with 2 custom characters one with a caster lean and one with a fighter lean.
I usually start a new game playing as a martial type. I’m wondering if a hybrid fighter that goes sword and shield but otherwise leans heavily into an offensive build would be viable. Can you build to an acceptable level of off-tank with respectable damage as well? Or maybe I should just roll paladin, since that’s more my personality in the first place. 😄
Ranger being so low, i dont understand. I do have to admit that i have a bias for them after i 4v1 vs these desert looking wisp things that were 2 levels above my party in poko kohara islands. They wiped my party at nearly 80% health each. The ranger was the only one alive and im like: ok lets try seeing how many die. All of them did. It was hilarious! 😂
💯 🎯 this is 1 of the best vids on PoE1. Everything is spot-on and I can promise this guy has played >100hr in this game & prob thousands of hours in cRPGs. Understanding how PoE’s “rest” mechanic impacts different classes & abilities is perhaps the most important aspect of deciding what class to play. Think of it like the most powerful abilities are tied to an invisible “mana” resource that only regenerates by rest which requires a campfire resource or trip to an inn/ stronghold. So, you may think Wizard is super OP – & they are… in their first battle after resting. Cipher however relies on a resource that she generates during combat rather than rest. If you’re like me and the rest mechanic is your main gripe (along with real-time + pause unfolding a bit too fast by default), you’ll enjoy a Cipher or even Priest play-thru far more than Wizard or even Druid. If you’re going to play in lower difficulties and carry lots of campfire resource, it’s less of an issue, but still a bit “fiddly”