Has anyone messed around with Hexes yet? If so, what do you think?

I started a new build and ended up parking him around SL30 because I couldn't decide which magic route I wanted to go (or forego it entirely). The Hex spells sound really interesting, but I don't know how effective I would be as I don't typically tend to carry around a lot of souls.

I'm a spender, not a saver. :D

I'm starting to build my sorcerer to use hexes, by putting more points into faith, and equipping a catalyst that scales well with darkness stat.

So far I only have the most basic projectile spell, so I haven't seen this soul draining mechanic yet, but judging by the default damage output of this low level hex, it seems comparable to greater soul arrow (at least with my stats).

Hex builds can vary. You can focus on faith based hex spells that use a talisman, or you can focus on intelligence based hex spells using a catalyst. Or both, if you want.

I'm planning to focus on both sorcery and intelligence-based hexes (with some pyro thrown in). Since the damage seems similar, the reasons I'm using hexes are:

• dark spells seem a lot better at breaking poise which stuns enemies. Useful for finding time to swig an estus or what have you.
• Several enemies have high resistance to magic power, so it's good to dish out an alternate damage type. Avoiding overspecialization is the way to circumvent those Brad vs Old King Dorn situations.
• More variety of spell effects. Not just shooting blue beams.
• The hexes that do use up your souls, could come in handy in difficult situations, but they still seem optional to me.

Good info. Thank you.

I was thinking it would be fun to go a very basic sword and board build and then go all out Int, Faith and Attunement and have fun with all the spells. Are you having to keep a constant pool of souls for most of the Hexes to put out damage?

@bnutz2k: Not really. I've been using the projectile spell while having zero souls. The damage doesn't seem gimped.

I'm pretty sure only certain spells (like the sword buff) that may use your souls to increase its power. Even then, I believe it's optional.

@mason: Very interesting. The strat guide seems to indicate that the spell damage for Hexes scales based on the amount of souls you're holding. I got it right here... one moment...

Ah... Hexes affected by number of souls currently held (according to the Brady Games strategy guide):

Resonant Soul
Great Resonant Soul
Climax (unf)
Resonant Flesh
Resonant Weapon
Lifedrain Patch

I think that's it.

Climax is a special one where the damage boost caps out at 5000 souls but it consumes ALL your souls when you cast it.

Anyone know how many souls the others spend? I can see it being a useful build, maybe with a covetous serpent ring, if you're already at a high SL and you don't really care about leveling up much anymore, provided the damage is worth it. Dark magic seems powerful, at least when enemies use it on me.

I got a character parked at like level 38. All his stats except for Faith are at 10-12. I have him using a shortsword. I think I'll get him a set of pimped out shortswords and just start pumping points into Int, Faith and Attunement and see how that plays out. I never played a pure caster type in the Souls games. It's always a Dex or Str build with low to mid tier sorcery or miracle abilities.

I've been using Dark Orb and Darkstorm a lot. With a good Dark-scaling weapon and points in both Int and Faith, the damage is pretty good. I'm looking forward to trying out Climax once I get it.

Hexes can be both Int leaning and Faith leaning in their requirements. If you want to use both kinds or the higher level hexes, you're going to have to pump both stats pretty high. Affinity, for example, has a requirement of 40 Int 24 Fai. As far as I can tell, the ones with the high Int requirements are the ones that just have a direct effect, and the ones with the high Fai requirement consume souls.

As far as soul spending goes, I've only tested Resonant Soul, but it spends 100 each cast. Really not a big deal. Also it's castable without souls, it just does less.

Also, a warning: if you haven't been to Shaded Ruins yet, the rastafarian minotaurs there have really high magic and dark resist (and pretty high fire resist). So get ready for some fun.

I hate those guys, seems impossible to stagger them too and I always end up eating a hit if I hit him with my greatsword, even just after he attacks. I always go for the backstab on them.

@homelessbird said:

Yep, I've made it through the entire game using only spells pretty much, but I still have to pull out a sword and go for backstabs on those guys.

Yeah as soon as I found Hexes in the game I started dumping mad points into Faith even though I started with a focus on sorceries. I actually defeated the Royal Rat Authority using that Dead Again corpse exploding Hex on the corpses in the boss room. The spread shot spell Dark Rain or whatever is pretty useful for pvp I find. I'm digging the Hexes perhaps more thematically but they've been pretty helpful as an offensive spell caster.

Most of these aren't really affected by the number of souls currently held. Instead, they "spend" a set amount of souls to do extra damage. Great Resonant Soul, for example, spends 500 souls to do its full 100% damage. If you have less than 500 souls, you'll do less damage depending on how many souls it gets to spend.

Climax is sort of an exception. It spends ALL of your souls, but its damage only scales up to 5000 souls.

I'm using hex magic on my second character and so far it has seemed quite good. Early-mid game Resonant Soul seems to be well-worth the 100 souls per cast it costs to do full damage. I'm not far enough into the game to where I feel comfortable spending 500 souls per cast to use Great Resonant Soul yet.

That pretty much settles it. I'm gonna go for it on my second character. Sounds like fun!

Hexes sound very interesting. I'm going to do a character with it eventually, just to mix things up. But I don't think it's really my thing. My favorite build is still high DEX and faith as it was in the first game. The bow is also a lot more powerful now. I use it a lot.