I've never bothered trying a magic build in Souls games, because I don't know how you deal with MP replenishment. Is it feasible with no melee weapon, or is magic something you save for boss fights? Like, could you clear a whole area of grunts before fighting the boss without having to rest at the bonfire?
>>719580656In Dark Souls 3, you gain estus from killing groups of enemiesYou still want to combo your spells and maximize your damage output with staff weapon art, but it's very doableYou can also put a simple weapon to restore some fp
>>719580656A good mage build has more melee damage than deicated physical melee builds. Where you suffer is lower survivability and tighter stamina pool to manage. Regardless, you should make use of that melee damage. No-melee mage is not really viable, especialyl because only miracles can be poise-casted, and you will get stunned out of everything else in CQC, which is very often unavoidable.
>>719581638Ku-Klux Klandalf!
>>719581690>No-melee mage is not really viableIt is though>especialyl because only miracles can be poise-castedThat's not how you play sorceryYou are a sniper that can dish out insane damage and has the ability to hitstun enemies as hard as the heaviest attacks with minimal wind ups and major rangeIf you actually get hit you are fundamentally doing something wrong, while Miracles synergize with melee a lot more.Getting a melee weapon is outright worse because Sage Crystal Staff offhand for the buff or Bellvine for the virtual dexterity are huge upgrades and all OP should need.By claiming he should gimp himself by wasting an handslot all time on a melee weapon you are giving him bad advice and it will only feed into the stereotype that sorcery isn't viable when it is actually not used properlyIn fact OP should head directly to Cathedral of the Deep right after starting and rush that offhand Bellvine.
>>719580656I'm too retarded for fp/arrow management so I cheated in infinite arrows and fp regen on my bow only and spells only playthroughs.
>>719582279>If you actually get hit you are fundamentally doing something wrong, while Miracles synergize with melee a lot more blah blahYeah cool story you have played through the game 100 times yadda yadda you know where every last pile of dogshit is on the map and nothing catches you by surprise. Good for you. Someone who plays through the game will get shit on by ambushes at least a couple times nonetheless, and telling them to no-melee is just an invitiation for trouble. Besides, you mix up "possible" and "viable".
>>719580656You still want a melee weapon. The main point of magic is that attacking enemies from range is generally safer than being close, so you can use it as a tool to make some enemies easier. You probably don't have enough fp to take out every enemy with magic so you want to save it for stronger enemies or for groups of enemies to weaken them.
>>719580656I will never use anything but a great sword for soulsno magic ever
>>719582798>claims sorcery only isn't viable>gimps sorcery by wasting a buff slot on a pointless melee weapon
>>719580656Play Dark Souls 2 as magic but look up where to find Dark Orb and Lightning Strike (if faith as well).Really fun.
>>719581762KEK
>>719583235Your loss, socery is extremely fun >>719581762peak /fa/
>>719580656>it feasible with no melee weapon, or is magic something you save for boss fights? Like, could you clear a whole area of grunts before fighting the boss without having to rest at the bonfire?Depends on the game and what you have access to at that stage. Early on, you're probably going to have limited enough access to spells, that you're going to do a lot of melee combat in any game. This is unavoidable until you can buy more spells/upgrade your flasks.But by the mid-game you usually have bonfires close enough together that you can only use ranged spells for PVE and not run out of uses before the next checkpoint. For bosses, it varies. Some bosses can be plinked away at from a distance. But others, particularly in DS3 and Elden Ring, will rush you down like they're NFL linemen. Both games have spells that act as melee sorceries for this purpose, your staff becomes your long/greatsword as needed. So you kinda end up playing half-melee depending on the game, inevitably. DS1, you probably won't ever need to, Elden Ring, you probably will.
>>719580656>Is it feasible with no melee weapon, or is magic something you save for boss fights?Usually, you can only really get a lot of casts from soul arrow variants, anything else you don't get that many castsIn DS3 onward, you're gonna sacrifice some HP estus for Mana estusIn DeS-DS2, you're gonna use herbs/spices to get mana back to keep going
Faith is better because all the projectiles in faith are stronger except for dark bead in ds1
>>719586727You either gotta grind bugs or play multiplayer to get the lightning spears, though. Sorceries you can just get naturally.
>>719586727In which game?In Elden Ring? YesIn Dark Souls? Faith is a support to melee. Even in Dark Souls 3, which made casting only more viable, you are not getting offensive spells before dealing with Dancer or all the way to Farron KeepIn Dark Souls you need to grind sunlight earlyYou are not doing a proper casting only easilyUnless you technically consider Elden Ring as cheating for merging Pyromancies into Incantations and account for a Pyromancer start
>>719580656This isn't a MMO where all you do is sit back and cast. You're supposed to carry a strong melee weapon
I've played a pure caster in every Souls game at least once, it was by far the most difficult in 3. I think it got buffed over the course of the game's patch cycle, so maybe it's not as bad now.
>>719581638How's the group thing work in 3? Seemed consistent in elden ring but I was always dry for long stretches in 3.
>>719589939You are right, it is not really consistent unfortunately, you can better rely on it in the DLC but you can go for a whole stretch with no refill unless you kill an invader.Damn shame, but I never found myself starved because the base game gives you a lot of chances to use some bonfire-boss shortcut and there's a lot of high efficiency optionEither way 2 simple infusions work, despite not being as optimal as starlight shards>but I was always dry for long stretches in 3.Soul Arrows and Pestilent Mercury are excellent mob and boss clearers with very little fp costs
>>719590749That's too bad, they should've had some more fp restoring stuff like demon's; think there was an fp ring, but I don't remember how late you get it. Was heavy soul arrow a more efficient use of fp over normal soul arrow? This is why I preferred casts over fp, didn't have to worry about efficiency.
In ds3, you can also hidden body and cheese the game
>>719590936Though I guess fp is like casts but you just don't have a number to keep track of. So 300fp would let you cast the same amount of each spell you could in 1 or 2.
>>719580656always busted
>>719591508>ignores a big stick doing nearly the same damage with better stagger potential
>>719580656It depends on the game but generally no, it's not really feasible to go with absolutely zero melee weapon. I think I've done a caster in every souls game but 2 and I generally did maybe 80% of my damage with spells but always had a melee weapon for shit that was hard to hit or survived a spell with a pixel of health and I didn't want to waste the casts/mana.
I want to replay DS3 as a mage.Any recommended mods?
>>719580656>Is it feasible with no melee weaponProbably, but keep a magic infused rapier or curved sword as a last resort. It would suck to have to run away from an enemy who is down to 10% hp because you run out of MP/casts.
>>719587076>Grinding bugs when the dupe glitch is right there, only requires you to do it once and you’re for the rest of your playthroughs
>>719582279The amount of retarded enemy deadzone manipulation needed to avoid a simple forward jump is hilarious
In DS1 you can attune spells multiple times, so you can get something like 120 soul arrows and still enough spell slots for something more powerful.
>>719580656>Is it feasible with no melee weaponIt's feasible in all souls games but in DS2 the DLC introduced a retarded universal ranged magic resistance for all enemies that starts at 60% and turns pure caster playthrough into a terrible slog, and in DS3 sorcery is so mechanically dull and boring you will fall asleep before you're even done with cathedral of the deep. The dipshit spamming webms in this thread illustrates how dreadfully boring DS3 sorcery is very clearly.
>>719594902Just fucking don't, play a pyromancer instead
The only souls game I did a pure sorcerer (no melee) build in was Dark Souls 1, and I found it to be a snoozefest so never tried again in 2/3/ER. Maybe it's just me but the real fun of the games is getting right into an enemy's face and having to master their attack patterns in a sweaty back and forth melee. Hanging back and going pew-pew with spells just felt so underwhelming and boring and safe.
