So in the back half of my NG+ playthrough I dumped heavy armor and decided to go medium. I also dropped my +10 Mastodon Halberd for a +10 Drakekeeper Sword. It freshened up the experience for me considerably as I had gotten tired of tanky-ness (90+ hours of the same build gets a little tedious). Now that NG+ is over, I'm considering playing a mage and I'm not sure where to start. What stats should I focus on? What spells should I go for? Should I upgrade my catalyst? In the immortal words of the orange soapstone:

"Help me... but hole!"

"Try Dark therefore Hurray for hex!"

Sit back, relax, and watch as everything disintegrates before your very eyes, because Holy Shit is magic overpowered in this game, or at least relative to playing it melee only if maybe also with a bow. Like, not even just sorceries, but miracles and most especially hexes are incredibly powerful. It can sometimes even be a little demoralising to summon a magic user and watch as their variety of soul arrows just bloody melt the boss' health bar, while your attacks do roughly a quarter of the damage.

i pumped INT and FAITH equally, which gives a dark bonus that's about 20 points higher than the others

as far as i could tell fire damage was benefiting from faith too, so focusing purely on INT will more or less focus you into sorceries, faith into lightning, but putting some points into both seems to make the damage numbers climb higher regardless, so i wouldn't completely ignore faith or vice versa. (pure INT builders, please correct me if i'm wrong)

Attunement is a must, it improves your casting speed and seems to boost int and faith bonuses also. i have it almost as high as the first two, mid-fifties atm.

i left Vigor at 20 and have enough health for any situation (but i did slap on the life +2 and the third dragon ring for vendrick) although i do wear upgraded penal cuffs and skirt and grave guardian's top or whatever it's called, which all probably count as medium armor, so my defense is not negligible.

i left endurance low, likewise vitality, got ADP up to 22 (for what it's worth dodging attacks in pvp is a breeze), and i barely touched str or dex, i guess that depends on what weapons you want to use.

If you're not too attached to leveling quickly, you can get resonant soul and great resonant soul from the mage before you enter huntsman's copse. He requires like 10 faith and int or something to talk to him, but these spells take -100 souls and -500 souls per cast respectively. Regardless of that sacrifice, they are insanely powerful and are used for speed running strats right now. Also, if you'd like a good melee-mage weapon you can use the moonlight greatsword gained from the duke's dear freja's soul from NG+. I'd go about 25 faith and 40-50 int.

A fresh mage? A mage can be unfresh?

@klei said:

I think he was referring to starting a new game as a mage, rather than re-speccing a current character.

Raise your INT and FTH to 8 and talk to Felkin in Huntsman's Copse. He will sell you a staff and chime that can carry you to the midgame. I would continue from there and retrieve the 2 Yore branches from Harvest Valley. You can get gear that increases your casting speed in the Shaded Woods (before the scorpion lady boss) but it requires 2 Yore branches to get there.

It depends on the magic build, but I can speak towards a pure Int/Sorcery one. Early game will range to awesome to really shitty. One of the biggest changes this games is that some bosses tend to be way more aggressive so getting of your casts can be difficult at times. Patience is key. Also, it can take a while until you get more sorceries. I was pretty much using soul arrows and its greater variant until No Mans Wharf. On the bright side, getting summoned is probably the easiest thing in the world. You are effectively getting rid of your greatest weakness by having other guys there while you just unload on the boss. Also playing through the game once already will probably help a ton as well. Knowing where to get the good spells made magic in Dark Souls 1 amazing for new games, I suspect 2 will be the same.

Still, I'm only about half way through. From what I hear the second half of the game is where you start getting your big nukes that really melt guys. Also it seems that this game they are pushing you a bit more towards splitting your points between Int and Faith. Damage scaling goes Magic/Int, Lightning/Faith, and Fire/Int and Faith. Splitting your points is probably your best bet seeing as you pretty much triple your spell vendors too.

It's worth adding that I think Straid sells an Intelligence boosting ring, which if it's the same as the miracle boost ring, will increase your intelligence by 5 points.

If you decide to go Dark Mage I suggest you use the Archdrake Staff, I believe you can buy it from the merchant just outside Hunstman's Copse. at +10 it gets A scaling with both INT and Dark. In case you go full sorcery, the Wisdom Staff is a good choice albeit a tad slower, but with S scaling in INT it makes for good damage. I think that one was from Dragon Shrine.

Get the Black Witch Staff from the Crypt and go nuts. It can cast Sorceries, Miracles, and Hexes. Sure, there are individual catalysts that are better for each, but the versatility and not having to frantically switch catalysts and spells mid fight more than make up for it. The Hexer Set you get from Felkin is also probably the best set for a caster in the game. It raises FAI and INT by 1 each and the hood gives more spell uses.

Also, make sure you do invest points into STR and DEX, as my caster build is starting to struggle weapon wise.

As a pure sorcery user (not using any hexes) I still eventually got 15 Faith so that I could use the Archdrake Staff that Felkin sells in Huntsman's Copse. It's heavier, apparently a little bit slower but 10 casting speed is so barely noticeable anyway, and it has better Mag and Dark scaling. Killing Felkin nets you another staff that's upgraded through Twinkling and is probably not all that useful unless you use hexes, I dunno, but the hag mechant in Mejula will sell you his armor and his hood gives you extra spell castings. I didn't get any Sin for killing him, and he's the only NPC I've killed so I'm not sure how that works.

There are a bunch of spells that seem cool, like one that fires a hail of small energy, or one that makes it rain some energy, or create a vortex of energy, there's also the Homing Soul Arrow variations. these are, sadly, at best situational at worst gimmicky and useless, regular variations of Soul Arrow are much more dependable, if a bit boring.

As for Soul Arrow, depending on how you split your reliance on magic and a physical weapon you may want a bunch of attunement slots (Oh and Attunement also gives you Agility, and though it gives it at a slower rate than Adaptability you can largely ignore that stat as a magic user). You don't want to run out of magic so in the beginning get as much of the regular Soul Arrow as you can, then start moving over to Great Soul Arrow and Heavy Great Soul Arrow. "Heavy Soul Arrow" seems a weird middle step between being slow and not having much damage so I wouldn't bother with it, just slot more regular Soul Arrow as you get more uses of that.

Visit the mage guy in No-Man's warf early, naturally, also there's a Soul Spear spell hidden in Huntsman's Copse, those are good for bosses.

Now as for playstyle, I use a shield, in that I have one but it's mostly for emergencies or tight situations as rolling away is the name of the game. It's nice to always have a range option and being able to pick off some otherwise out of reach guys that messes with you in the early game. Different lockon ranges in different areas has been my biggest problem, No-Man's warf would be so much easier if I didn't have to get so close to all the enemies, though shooting from the hip is sometimes an option as it's easier to shoot a straight shot in Dark Souls 2. Lastly, I found the Stone Ring to be useful as it would let my spells stagger some enemies with every attack instead of every other, letting me more easily take them down before they reached me (the knights in Iron Keep is one such example).

Summon NPCs, when you can. A lot of the bosses like to get up in your face, and that can prove difficult, for a mage. Also, seek out the Soul Vortex spell asap. It was the first sorcery that I felt to be "powerful".

Sorceries are for pussies. Real warriors use a sword.

Also, milk is for babies. Real men drink beer.

I beat the game with 7 STR and 12 DEX. If you want to experience all the spells then it's possible to get through the game with stats that low. It's worth pumping them up for a shortsword and a large leather shield early since your attunement won't be super high for a while. I don't even use a weapon anymore since my casts and spell power get me through pretty much any area. That's just how I did it because I wanted to have access to all spells. For all I know you want more of a Spellsword build with more strength and endurance for better equipment and not even touch miracles and hexes. They can be pretty awesome though.

Thanks a lot duders. A lot of good tips in this thread. I've decided to duel wield my spells. Catalyst in one hand, Chime in the other. Hurling bolts of lightning and gigantic soul arrows has been pretty satisfying so far.

I have no shield currently. I don't feel the need for one. I've been playing this game religiously since it was released and I've gotten more than a handle on dodging. The only time I've sort of regretted this path was when I ran out of soul arrows on my way to Ornstein. Wound up using my last five on him and then killing the boss with the starting dagger.

On the way to No-Man's Wharf. Should be interesting to see how this setup works against harder hitting foes.

Current stats:

Soul Level 52, Sorcerer
VIG 10
END 10
VIT 5
ATT 20
STR 3
DEX 7
ADP 10
INT 20
FTH 22

Anything you think I should focus on right at the moment? I'm obsessed with tackling the areas "in order" so I won't be visiting Huntsman's Copse until after I finish the Lost Bastille.

I haven't played DS2 yet (waiting for PC), but how would you compare the power of mages in DS2 to Dark Souls and Demon's Souls?

I played a mage in both and have consistently felt that they simply don't balance these games all that well for magic users. I felt like the early game in Dark Souls was more punishing than for melee characters simply because I never had ever casts to make it through it an area. I basically had to use weapons on some enemies because I'd run out of spells well before the boss otherwise.

Later in the game this became much less of an issue, but I still felt the balance was off. Some bosses and enemies are trivial with magic, you can basically sit back and kill them from range and not get touched, while others give you barely any window to get off your higher level spells with longer casting times. The result was a game with wildly inconsistent degrees of challenge for magic users. As a light armor wearing mage with low vitality the fucking anor londo snipers seemed even more difficulty than for other builds because I couldn't really take any hits and being out of lock on range means I could do absolutely nothing. I eventually beat them by grinding to buy homing soulmass and do a mad charge at them hoping it would fire off before I died.

Demon's Souls became very easy late in the game when I could freely buy high tier spice, and I actually finished the last five bosses in the game on one life.

Saying "magic is overpowered" is always kind of unfair. What else can they do to balance it, at this point? They've limited the number of casts, made casting speed variable and more stat-dependent, and tied the use of magic to stamina reduction.

As someone who played through DS2 as a Sorcerer who only used Sorceries and not Hexes, I had a tough time in plenty of zones and with plenty of bosses. Certain areas were obviously different for me; The Iron Keep was fairly straightforward because I could attack from range and take out the asshole archers that would've made my life hell as a melee build, but isn't that the point of playing different builds? Some builds have an easier or harder time in some areas than others.

Some Hexes are definitely disproportionately powerful compared to other magic, but it feels frustrating to constantly read that I'm somehow playing the game wrong, or on Easy Mode, just because I like using magic builds.

I haven't actually played as a magic user in DkS2 yet, only going from what I've observed via PVP and summons. However casting speed is now incredibly fast, least if you put points into attunement, which... of course you will given you're a magic user :P I don't doubt that certain areas may once again prove tricky for magic users over melee, but the sheer damage output now completely outclasses melee weapons. By NG+ the divide between melee and magic is pretty staggering really. I've got two melee characters, one dex one strength, each of which can probably dish out between 400-800 damage on average with some of their best respective weapons, whereas magic builds can seemingly do double, if not triple, that. There's so many unique staffs and rings that specifically benefit a magic class, and now there's even armour sets that can reduce casting speed even further, or allow you more attunement slots and so on.

Casts are still limited of course, but there's a surprising amount of consumables you can find that'll restore your casts. As far as PVP is concerned also... well, it's really no surprise that 8/10 people I encounter are rolling with hexes and/or sorceries, because it is ludicrous how powerful they are, coupled with their fast cast speed. I can dodge most attacks, but simply knowing that one single attack has a high chance of killing me outright--whereas it'll usually take a 5-6 hits for me to kill them--always gives me a bit of anxiety, which in turn may invariably make me fuck up... Also, poise isn't nearly as reliable as it was in the original Dark Souls, either. I've never been very good at PVP to begin with anyway, but I always prefer facing against a fellow melee build regardless.

Though while again I haven't played as a sorcerer yet, I have started up a third miracle character and so far I've quite literally been able to beat most bosses by just hanging back and throwing lightning spears. The Ruin Sentinels were made to be completely trivial because of it.

@yummylee: I made a pure magic user and running through the early game was a real pain. The spells you get at the start are weak as fuck, even with a lot of attunment you don't have that much casts and you're super fragile.

Compared to my cleric strength/faith build it's much harder. Seriously, lightning rips through everything and you can save your good magic for harder encounters since a mace or axe also kills almost everything.

Magic has a tough time in the beginning, if you are just using sorceries, all you can really do for damage is cast soul arrow or run in with magic weapon buffed. Once you are up to Drangleic Castle you have a lot more options for damage. If you really wanna blast through the game, you could get your intellect and faith up to 20 and go talk to Felkin, the hex dude. He should give you the Sunset Staff, which is best staff for casting hexes, and it's pretty decent at casting sorceries too. Infusing it with a darknight stone and getting it to +5 is a priority. Then, buy Dark Orb from Felkin and Straid and wear the hexers hood, and you got 48 casts of it, and you can just sit there and become a dark spewing turret.

You can't really get a good chime for casting great resonant soul until you get it from the chest with soul greatsword from Drangleic Castle. Once you have that chime though, get it to +10 and infuse it with dark, and at 30/30 int/fai, you should be hitting most enemies for 985 a pop. Another great side effect of having intellect and faith at 30, is you get really good bonuses to fire damage, so pyromancy is a great option. A +10 pyromancy flame using Flame Swath, you should be hitting for 1250. At this point in the build, every boss is a joke, a couple flame swaths and some great resonant soul and they're dead.

The reason why hexes are so great for most of the game, is that there are barely ANY enemies or bosses that are resistant to dark, whereas there are plenty who are resistant to magic.

While were talking mages I gotta ask. Do any of you bother with securing yourself. melee weapon or do you just go pure magic? I'd love to go pure magic but I just feel that you would run out of magic before you even got to the area boss. I've got a magic leaning character but she still is rocking a fire sword.

Wait, by 'pure magic' do you mean not even using a weapon?

Like a dagger once in a while since I won't waste any stats in dex or strength. I was planing on rolling a pure magic user and a dex int build separately. Pure magic is hard though.

I started my magic run with just the dagger and spells. Then added the pyro glove. Then decided to upgrade str and dex for a shield and sword. made a dark mace and a magic sword for when my spell casts ran out, or I didn't want to use them on weaker enemies. I think using only magic would be incredibly hard. You can only have so many slots and so many casts.

Oh, well yeah course, that I could see. I do plan to start a magic character myself eventually, but I'll least be putting in enough stats to be able to use weapons, too. That fire straightsword seems like the perfect weapon to start with. Honestly for me solely using magic sounds a little boring.

Also, I should add that I think you're overselling the mace a bit. It's certainly an improvement from how rubbish it was in Dark Souls, but its animation set is rather limited, pretty much requiring you to be right on whatever you're attacking's ass. Even a regular straightsword moveset has more reach. I actually kinda regret on upgrading to so high...

@ll_exile_ll: I've started playing as a primarily int wizard while I've been doing endgame stuff for my other character. Since you haven't played the game yet, there's a chance you might run into the problem of having magic shortages early on, but you'll be able to access a vendor fairly early who sells you stuff to replenish your spells for pretty cheap. Also, what's really helpful is that the different elemental damages scale with int and faith in this game. Fire is supposed to scale specifically with intelligence, so I've put enough point into STR and DEX to be able to use the Fire Longsword, which gains B rank fire scaling after a few upgrades. For where my mage is in the game, he's actually doing comparable damage to what my STR/FTH build was doing at that point, so if you're ever concerned about spell usage, you can always fall back on the sword.

But if you don't want to use melee at all, you're able to get multiple scrolls of the basic sorceries pretty early on, so as long as you put enough points into INT, you can defeat most enemies with one or two casts. I should mention that I only played a bit of a mage on DSI on my cousin's 360, and I didn't have your problems early game since I put everything into INT (I could kill the first bell gargoyle in four hits with heavy soul arrow). The reason I mention this is because my build in DSII is comparable, and I have yet to do that much damage to any boss. Note that if you put points into STR and DEX like I have, you probably won't put any into VGR, which has given me difficulty with some bosses despite the range and power, but others in this thread have done a good job of explaining pure sorcery builds, so I'd look to them for advice.

Sure but it does a lot of damage against all actual hard enemies and I breezed through the first third of the game with that and lightning spears. Then I got a gyrm axe for the fleshy enemies and a great club for the rest. Finally, with great lightning spear I became unstoppable. Seriously, the cleric is OP in this game. Early weapon that's great against the difficult enemies, early spell that nullify the lack of estus and early offensive spell that's great against every boss in the game except the easy ones.

http://forums.demonssouls.info/viewtopic.php?f=82&t=19416

This thread has some really good tips from a guy who has done his homework. He has a good list of gear that increases your stats, and has paid attention to some unlisted buffs on items. Essential.

@oldirtybearon: there's a disc chime that can be used as a shield in the left hand, blocks with L1, casts with L2, if you ever get to the point where you feel the need.

it can be found on a ledge at the very bottom of the pit in majula, i think it has to be accessed through the grave of saints if i remember right, the part where there's a rope bridge over to a chest, with a crystal lizard whose drop will fall to the floor below, where you get swarmed by those exploding hollows. the chime is on a ledge to one side from the chest, you have to jump to it.

i haven't stopped using it since i found it, i upped it to +10 lightning and now in ng+ its great lightning bolt is my bread and butter spell.