Hey guys, need your help for a bit.

Please keep the spoilers to a minimum. I'm halfway through Drangleic castle and know just about nothing about the upcoming areas.

Ok, my most successful guy in Dark Souls 1 was a Faith/Dex build chucking Sunlight Spears in bosses' faces. I beat the game three times with this guy. I thought I could do the same with Dark Souls 2 and so far I liked the playstyle I've been using; heavy Co-op and some Pvp I just hang back and chuck my lightning spears at dudes/bosses. Even when I solo bosses, I have the most success by dodging/blocking attacks and responding with a miracle. I already made a few changes to my initial build idea that arose from just experimenting with different weapons and infusions.

1. I dropped the dex build in order to use the Lances I found. - I'm using the Old Leo Ring and am breezing through PVE. The lances have also been successful for me in PvP with this set up, I'm ok with my 30 str to one hand the Chariot Lance.

2. I increased my INT to play around with some Hexes since I already had a powerful chime, I though I might as well give it a shot. The thing is, I love the hexes I've played with. Great Resonant Soul is a good backup to my Lightning Spear. I soften up the enemies with the hex/miracle and then poke em in the face with the lance. It works pretty good for me.

Here's my question...

I intend to stop leveling at 150 for occasional PvP on this character. I may make a new guy just to PvP with later, but I'm not sure about that yet. My goal was to end with 42 Faith (using the black hood and Ring of Prayer = 47 faith) to be able to throw Sunlight Spears and an INT of 16 to use some utility hexes.

Should I even out my int and faith to 30/30 in order to maximize my hexes at the cost of reduced lightning spear/miracle potency? I did check out a wiki, and I don't really see myself using any of the more stat demanding hexes and faith since my guy is more of a hybrid. I like the option of hitting any enemy (PvP or PvE) with Lightning, Dark, or Physical damage at just about any time.

Thanks.

It's a matter of choice, really. Hexes are the stronger magic in Dark Souls 2, but very costly : Most of them uses 2 attunement slots and the best ones burn your souls. Plus, most of the ennemies in PvE are weak to darkness so... My main character dex/hexe, can just walk through the game unscathered without even using his sword (which pack up some serious damage... dark infusion + special effect from the weapon, but won't spoil you here).

Without any hexe aid (won't spoil you what it is) and a catalyst that isn't even the best damage or casting time wise (but can cast both sorcery, miracles and hexes by itself), 30/30 in both faith and intelligence, each one of my great resonant soul casts do 900 damages. It climb up to 1100 damages with the hexes friendly item.My weapon, using resonant dark weapon (a greatsword, but not ultra), do around 800/900 each hit. Using my backup dark rapier infused with resonant weapon, depleting my stamina bar do more than 4000 damage. And that's not counting usefull hexes like dark mist, or that hexe that prevent your opponent to cast a spell... There are hexes that do AoE damage, something which was one of Pyromancy greatest assets. There is the famous "dark shotgun" which is useful in PvP.

In the end, it's matter of preference.

What sold me on hexes was walking into one of the boss rooms with many adds and Darkstorm just wrecked everyone/everything. I guess that's why there's soul vessels in this game. I think that I'll be gaining much more in dark damage with buffs and hexes than the lightning damage I'll be losing with lowered faith..

I'll give it a try, thanks.

@tekzero: Why would you stop leveling at 150 for PVP? Do you mean you'll stop collecting souls at 150 or do you just not understand how PVP works in DS2?

You should not stop at 150 for PvP. it's actually in your best interest to either use souls as efficiently as possible or attempt to aquire as little souls as possible. You can look up "Soul Memory" on the wiki. But the basic gist is that your multiplayer matchmaking is based on the total collection of souls you have aquired, doesn't matter if they were lost, or used to purchase equipment or spells. So in an unfortunate circumstance you could end up severely underleveled for the matchmaking bracket you are in.

No it's not a good system. No I will not defend it.

Dark Souls 2 stats system is isuper forgiving, you can PvE with pretty much anything, it's incredibly hard to screw up, so do what you feel like.

As someone who played a 50 int/faith hybrid mage for a second run. For PvE hexes are kind of dead weight compared to miracles. Lightning spears of all types will just rip through everything in NG regardless. Good faith chimes are easy to come by and a lot of things are weak to lightning. Unless you are using hexes that drain your souls, lightning spells just plain outdo hexes it in damage and even then they would be on equal footing at best (aside from 1 specific hex). And for 99% of your killing a good fast single target spell is what you use.

PvP would be the only real reason to go with hexes, as they do stamina damage have better aoe, and you don't care about souls that much.

@mosespippy: I just really don't understand how it works. I try to avoid spoilers, but I do research into what weapons I'll try to look out for and where spells I might want are found. I've also looked into the PvP stuff and while I understand how Soul Memory works, I have seen equal amounts of people saying that in NG+ your SL does and doesn't matter anymore. It's all confusing. I just picked SL150 because of the farfire.darksoulsii.com level range curve and a few PvP youtube videos I've seen when looking for weapon ideas.

My 150 SL isn't set in stone, just a guideline I guess. I plan ahead for everything, I'm not even at SL 150 yet so there's no telling when I'll stop. I mean is there a set PvP level at all?

I found with my 50 Int/50 Faith caster that lightning based miracles are godlike for PVE. I used a lot of hexes as well, but by the end of the game nothing was giving me any trouble at all. Turns out most bosses are weak to lightning as well.

For late game PVP, hexes tend to be better than miracles. Not that miracles are weaker or anything, but miracles like lightning spear tend to be pretty easy to avoid and are almost completely useless in PVP. That was my experience though. By soul lvl 140 or 150, I was killing players with 1 great resonant soul. Just gotta be able to land it.

A caster class is super fun though. I highly recommend it.

Turns out this thread has been more helpful than I thought. I guess I won't gimp myself by staying at any certain level then. And if that's the case, I'll just get my faith up to where I wanted it and then boost my int/adp when I need to.

I beat NG at around SL 170 and could easily find PVP matches. I'm now SL 252 and still find PVP matches pretty easily. Don't gimp yourself.

@mosespippy: If that's the case, then I could totally understand why they went to the Soul Memory system. It allows people to PvP at any time only depending only on how long they have played and collected souls.

I second not gimping yourself at 150 as it's extremely detrimental in DS2 and unnecessary. My sl389 with over 60million soul memory still has zero problems summoning or getting invaded in ng+.

Same with my sl270 with over 50million soul memory in ng, no problems with summoning or getting summoned.

I, on the other end, find "gimping" yourself good.

Sure you can still PvP and Co-op with higher SL, but I find that past a certain SL, you throw "personnality" by the window. My main char, with the higher SL, is 175 and I can kill almost anything and anyone with it, while still being unique. If I go past that, I just feel plain overkill... and it's from someone whos main character is hexe user. Having to make some sacrifices to my build feels right. Having 30as my lowest stat don't.

But it's a matter of opinion, it's just mine.