I always try to like magic based characters in any RPG, but they never fail to impress me. Sure they could deal insane amounts of damage in Demon's Souls, but whats the point when you look like a weakling carrying a twig?

From what I have seen, the heavy armor sets look phenomenal including all the 2h's/longswords. Hopefully 2h/longsword builds are not as underpowered in Dark Souls pvp. Everyone seemed to use katana's, or magic. If anyone has information proving otherwise that would be nice to hear.

The playstyle in any rpg I tend to enjoy most is the flexible "medium-range" character with high mobility--so melee weapons with some range, like spears, are my ideal weapons, but I also use magic that makes me more mobile or slows & stuns/holds enemies.

I feel that for this type of game, melee is pretty fun. Magic is probably more powerful, but you would also need to be able to know how to defend yourself against the enemies.

In the Souls franchise, always pick melee. It's just satisfying. Magic might be more powerful in spots but it can feel dumb and cheap compared to the excellent melee.

Magic/long range is for pussies that can't get it up. 
 
"Oh look at me hiding behind a pillar for 30 minutes while pumping arrows into this dragon! I'm so brave!"

Shield and spear for me, though I'd always keep a few magic spells handy just in case I come across something particularly vulnerable to magic.

I loved my faith melee build in Demon's Souls, so I'll probably do melee again here

The noble in Demon's was an easy way out in the beginning areas. You can follow that route if you want.

Well with the new stock cast system they removed the option use spells exclusively.   
Also there is a significant drawback to spells compared to arrows in that you can not manually aim them. 

I can understand people would want to try to play a pure wizard but honestly the melee combat in DS is so satisfying it should not be a dealbreaker. 
Judging from the quicklook Bombs are ALOT more effective than in the previous game i hope that item damage scales and this is not just for the starter areas. 
You could find alot of neat usable weapons like throwing knifes and whatnot but they were always next to useless 

@lschell said:

I always try to like magic based characters in any RPG, but they never fail to impress me.

Not to be a grammar nazi but it should be "always fail to impress". "Never fail to impress" means that you are impressed.

Also you can very easily build a warrior mage character. From what I know melee and faith builds are actually the best for PvP in DeSo.

I'll be going for mage build because magic is always totally fucking cool.

I pick both, I love having a little flexibility.

I'm not going to stack any real points into magic, as I will mainly be a melee-focused tank, but I will make sure I have some spells handy for when the need arises. Got me out of a lot of tough spots in Demon's Souls.

I also keep hearing about Faith builds. Now there's a stat that I actually never really touched in Demon's Souls. Can anyone describe the benefits of these builds?

Melee for me.
 
Although I always carried a wand around just in case.

Everyone I've seen playing this game on streams and such were using a spear or halbert type weapon. I hope I can be succesful with swords and axes because I find those types of weapons way more interesting.

Always magic. Every time, no questions asked. Melee's just boring.

Played a temple knight in Demons, so I imagine I'll do it again. Magic is interesting but I prefer a pole-type weapon primarily and maybe one or two spells/miracles. Melee combat is far too fun to ignore it.

High risk and reward is often my playstyle in games like this.
But I'll probably die and switch over to a more defensive style just to get through the game.
 
I have no clue how magic works in this series but there's never enough mana anyway. So fuck that. I had enough regeneration breaks in MMO's to last me a lifetime.

@RiotBananas said:

Anyone know if a Thief/Rogue type character is a viable play style? Never played a Souls game.

Yes, but its not easy. You just need to be good at rolling and parrying attacks, otherwise you will die quick. Backstabs and ripostes (follow up attack after a parry) do huge amounts of damage, often killing even armored enemies in one hit. The trade off is that Backstabs require you to position yourself at a very specific orientation behind your target, and missing a parry can be fatal since you won't be wearing much armor.

Heavily melee-focused. But I like to keep my options open.

I'm a melee man myself, still when possible I like to cast a spell once in a while. Usually while running away from monsters :D

Melee with spells to support. Whether I go faith or magic will depend on which has more useful utility spells ( Such as Second Chance / Warding ) and what the weapons scale with.

I always go with the fast melee guy, so like a rogue or a warrior without a shield.

And if the game lets me I try and get spells that make me faster or stronger.

@VanillaPlant said:

@RiotBananas said:

Anyone know if a Thief/Rogue type character is a viable play style? Never played a Souls game.

Yes, but its not easy. You just need to be good at rolling and parrying attacks, otherwise you will die quick. Backstabs and ripostes (follow up attack after a parry) do huge amounts of damage, often killing even armored enemies in one hit. The trade off is that Backstabs require you to position yourself at a very specific orientation behind your target, and missing a parry can be fatal since you won't be wearing much armor.

What VanillaPlant said. I've played a game and NG+ with a Thief class and it's very effective since you tend to wear light armour (great for rolling and dodging) and backstabs do a lot of damage. If that fails then bow and arrows are still effective which is handy considering how the effectiveness of daggers and bows are governed by the Dexterity stat. Carrying a sword and shield for tougher enemies wouldn't hurt too. I don't know if the same play style applies to Dark Souls but I don't see why it shouldn't based on what I've seen so far.

Melee. I like the class when I can run into packs of mobs and beat them to death with my gigantic axe. My swedish brain hurts when I have to think too much.

Melee.

Melee, I really like magic but I almost always get bored of it. 

I mostly play melee .... I rarely use magic spells unless it is of the healing type , in rough estimates I would say Im 95% melee 5% magic user

melee, being a thief/assassin type of class in roleplaying is usually my thing, i played one somewhat effectively in Demon's Souls, though i did need to bust out the bow and arrow on occasion.

The first thing I do on Tuesday is thumb through the strategy guide and figure out where I can get a good bow

I've never played Demon Souls but i FUCKING LOVE SHIELDS. So yeah, something with a Shield and [insert whatever weapon here] that can take much, much damage. SO yeah, Melee (With Shields.).

The great thing about the souls games is you can play any way you want. In Demon's Souls I would spec equipment differently for the task at hand, or just for fun. You could run through a level theif-style with a dagger, or just using ranged arrows and magic to dispose of your enemies, then once you are about to fight the boss, switch to a sword, shield, and heavier armor to go for the melee kill! Once you are mid-game and have lots of equipment options, you'll be able to play any way you want if you have the minimum stat requirements. For that reason I never biased my stats too much when starting out (i.e. all magic and nothing in strength) and then I specialized a bit at higher levels once I could already play multiple ways.

But I always had a shield, a nice shield!

I prefer melee with "some" magic mostly for buffs and support. I have a demon's souls character who has every spell and max spells slots and I don't even cast on him hardly ever :/

I know this is an old post, but I just want to get my opinion out. I think magic is a very big part of the game, but I always keep away from magic. I strictly play melee and nothing else. I beat the game in like 20 hours on my first playtthrough. I say, if you are up to it, try to play with absolutely no magic. It's intense and even more rewarding

Full melee with only the basic heal spell to survive longer. Although I'm wondering if it would be worth working on spells for NG+. Strength focused build atm.

Generally in RPGs I like to do a Magic playthrough. But in Dark Souls it was much more appealing to carry a giant as sword...

Made me feel safe. lol.

Melee in ever game ever.

Magic easiest in soul games, but I need melee to survive

@TaliciaDragonsong: ihave a question about the pinweel masks. I know i can buy them off of patches after nito but is there a way i can get them before i get the lords vssal if so how do i get them also after what boss does reah go into the catacombs.

I think the game is really made for melee characters, at least until almost the end, cost to fully upgradeand buyout all pyro- over 500k, range in cast to short, delay on casting to long, switching too much between catalysts and weapons , rings etc is not conducive for pvp, pvp is for tanks or dex chars, Ive only beaten 3 invasions with sorcery, and thats my build, I get 1 or 2 shot on the rest. Magic is definetly more difficult, but it has some advantages in pve and co op. but i do like a challenge so i continue to refine my skills as a sorcerer, while melee tanking takes smaller skill, unless your a ranged,dex build is moderate skill.

mainly melee but i been known to dabble in a bit of magic.

I went through it using no magic at all and had a blast so melee for me.

Melee for me.

I always prefer melee in these types of games.

Always melee. Always.

Melee, I am always satisfied hitting things where with magic I get bored eventually. Also I really enjoyed back stabbing.

I used magic in demon and melee in dark and I prefer melee-it is more exciting.

Im a stright up tank in this game and to qoute a guy from youtube...TARKUS

Melee. Magic is amazing for the actual in game enemies, but melee with a little pyro just in case seems to work the best for PvE and PvP for me.
Set up: Chaos washing pole +5
Ornsteins armor, havel's gloves boots
Ascended pyro +5
Grass crest/Sanctus (depends)
Ninja flip/Havel's/backstab ring
I'm sure there are better setups but im used to this and rarely ever die to invaders

Melee, the block and parry move is something that I was able to master fairly early on and it really helped me through the rest of the game. The timing on it was a little different than Demon's Souls but not too bad.