From Software The Dark Souls II Megathread™

[DragoFireheart]

Nah, magic is the worst off here of all 3 games. Spells either have crap uses or crap power, and there's nothing to boost them. Early game is hell because you can't get a magic weapon till 30+% in.

???

Spoiler

You get a Magic Mace and Soul Spear in Huntsman's Corpse.
You can get a bunch of Soul Arrows from the mage guy in No-Man's Warf

You have to be more knowledgeable than in the past to take advantage of Sorcery. Also, Hexes are pretty powerful early on since:

Spoiler

Getting access to a Hexer is easy early on. With 20 FTH and 20 INT, you can get the best Hext Staff in the game.

 

[deuxhero]

You can gets spells if you know where to look, but they aren't nearly as powerful as DES/DaS1, plus the magic mace isn't that great.

 

[DragoFireheart]

, plus the magic mace isn't that great.

You do realize that Strike and Magic damage are probably two of the best damage types in the game?

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

I don't see why you should stick to some kind of limit on yourself. I hit SL160 today (ten levels solely from out of taking care of my grudge with the Ruin Sentinels when those sons of bitches showed their face again at Castle Drangleic).

 

[80Maxwell08]

Eh by the time I got the Magic Mace I was already doing way more damage with my current weapon (upgraded bastard sword I think?) so I kinda just filed it away after that. Granted now I have enough materials to make it +6 so I might do that later to see how it goes.

 

[deuxhero]

Strike wouldn't surprise me, but the sheer number of "suck it magic" foes really make me doubt magic is that great without something else alongside it. Mace's problem isn't its damage, but its 1-handed moveset (though it works better 2-handed and may be better with practice)

I will say Sorcery is REALLY good in PVP. Lower magic resists, less Hp and less worries about endurance make it very nice there.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Strike wouldn't surprise me, but the sheer number of "suck it magic" foes really make me doubt magic is that great without something else alongside it.

Other than those Lion warriors or the Shaded assholes in the misty forest whom you can't target I have no clue what you are talking about.

Mace's problem isn't its damage, but its 1-handed moveset (though it works better 2-handed and may be better with practice)

Mace moveset is fine.

 

[deuxhero]

The stone solders in the castle off the top of my head

Also: Dragon Aerie, visually, a nice area with a very cool atmosphere, but fuck the third red dragon. It's ability to breath fire through SOLID ROCK (pretty sure it's a bug given the earlier 2 don't do it) and the fire comboing into itself are total bullshit.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

The Stone Soldiers are piss-easy tho. In fact they're essentially walking awesome, given how they drop Titanite Slabs (can you still break Titanite down?).

 

[Hobo Elf]

I started a Hexer run today and it is definitely the hardest pure caster so far. Faith is still the best, Sorcery being better off than the Hexer in the beginning since you don't have to spread your stats too thin. Dark Orb is also a piece of shit of a spell due to the poor range. Can't snipe anyone with the binoculars. On the other hand you do get a Staff with S scaling in Darkness real early so it has its ups and downs.

But saying magic is the worst off here without trying a pure Faith caster is talking like someone who hasn't tried a pure Faith caster. Shit is crazy, yo. Still killing bosses with 4-5 Sunlight Spears in NG+.

 

[deuxhero]

Sorcery, not magic.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Well Sorcery is crabtabulous in that it has only boring pew pew magic spells until you reach Aldia Keep then you get Soul Geyser and suddenly you can do damage to bosses. It's more of a NG+ kinda thing. Still not nearly as good as Faith, though. Like I said earlier, the only reason why Sorcery fails here more than in previous Souls games is because there are no rings that give +20% damage to it, no off-hand items that increase spell damage, no hats that give more spell damage etc., otherwise it's the same. We have a faster cast speed ring now which is shit and useless since the spells have hard caps for cast speed bonus which you will probably reach with high ATT and INT which is what you want anyway. We can also upgrade catalysts but it doesn't have the same effect as the previous items did.

 

[Jaedar]

Sorcery is bad in ds2?

I like playing sorceror.

 

[DragoFireheart]

I started a Hexer run today and it is definitely the hardest pure caster so far. Faith is still the best, Sorcery being better off than the Hexer in the beginning since you don't have to spread your stats too thin. Dark Orb is also a piece of shit of a spell due to the poor range. Can't snipe anyone with the binoculars. On the other hand you do get a Staff with S scaling in Darkness real early so it has its ups and downs.

But saying magic is the worst off here without trying a pure Faith caster is talking like someone who hasn't tried a pure Faith caster. Shit is crazy, yo. Still killing bosses with 4-5 Sunlight Spears in NG+.

I feel like we are playing two different games.

Hexers are the EASIEST casters. You can get the best hexing staff 2 or less hours, damage spells that rape everything, and it remains strong for the rest of the game.

We have a faster cast speed ring now which is shit and useless since the spells have hard caps for cast speed bonus which you will probably reach with high ATT and INT which is what you want anyway.

Where did you hear this?

 

[Kanedias]

Sorcery is balanced in PvE, and quite hard at the start, in fact. Now in PvP, it is the most overpowered thing you can fight against because of the ridiculousness of the Moonlight Greatsword, which I explained earlier (if you didn't see it, long story short, a Moonlight Greatsword at base stats to wield it has the same damage as a Claymore with 40 str and 40 dex). Int builds also deal massive damage with pyromancy, which is an issue when you have a spell such as Forbidden Sun - a massive fireball with a lightning fast casting time, it can demolish your HP bar. At least it costs 3 slots to attune and it has a low amount of casts, so there's that.

In terms of PvE, Faith is the new Int. You get a lot of nice utility miracles, and a lot of lightning spears, which are very versatile and excellent against basically all enemies and bosses. Lightning weapons with SLB do very good melee damage as well, so you're not short in that regard, either. In PvP, Faith is quite balanced, the offensive miracles are easy to dodge through, and while SLB does a lot of damage, it's a reasonable amount. Faith builds are fun to fight against. Then you get Wrath of the Gods, which is absolutely ridiculous. If you didn't encounter it yet, WoG is not like it was in Dark Souls 1 - it's a single, slow-ish cast which does massive damage, easily more than 2000. If you get hit by it in PvP you're most likely going to get one-shotted. You can get one more cast with the right headwear, and with items that give you more casting speed, it becomes quite ridiculous. The only thing I can recommend is blocking it with a nice magic resistant shield, because rolling through it is quite difficult since 1) you tend to get surprised, because it's not a common spell 2) the difference in casting speed from player to player makes the timing to roll through it trickier, roll too early or too late, and you're gone.

Hexers gain access to one of the most retarded spells in this game, Great Resonant Soul, which is essentially a soul arrow with massive damage. Once you get that spell, press R1 to victory. In PvP, they're quite balanced, similar to Faith builds, though the Great Resonant Soul is very problematic. It's very easy to dodge but if lag makes you get hit, you can lose most of your HP and it drains your stamina as well, so it can be annoying. Aside from this, everything else seems fine.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Kanedias

EDITs:

Regular Resonant Soul is better since it's only 100 souls and still does solid damage. Also get more casts.

Sorcery is balanced, but some people are pretending like it's as worthless as a Broken Sword. But there is no doubt Hexers are superior for early and mid game due to RS and GRS. Going 20 INT/20 FTH is the best for early-mid game power. Going above 20 for FTH isn't worth it in all honesty as scaling drops after 20 until 40. You invest in more attunement and other stats until late game where you then dump lots of levels into int.

 

[Kanedias]

Some minor things: it seems like some weapons do special things when held in the right hand and dual wielded. For example, with Ricard's Rapier in the right hand and another rapier in the offhand, the L2 attacks (power stance heavy attack) will cost next to no stamina. To compare, I can do 3 L2 attacks with other rapiers before my stamina runs out, but when the Ricard's was in the main hand, I could do 12.

I don't really care about dual wielding rapiers, but other unique weapons could have special effects when held in the right hand and dual wielded, too. I'll have to test.

 

[80Maxwell08]

So I've got a Sorcerer going now and do I still need 20-30 adaptability or should I focus on another stat first?

 

[DragoFireheart]

So I've got a Sorcerer going now and do I still need 20-30 adaptability or should I focus on another stat first?

20 INT / 20 FTH, talk to dark hexer, get cool gear, buy Resonant Soul, win.

 

[Kanedias]

Attunement gives you casting speed, spell slots, and a bit of agility. You may not need to raise ADP as high as a melee character to get the same result because of the agility contribution from attunement.

 

[Invictus]

A friend of mine went full hexes and he is basicaly unstoppable in PVP; he cast the resonant soul, dark hail and the manus homing missle spell and its is game over. I was thinking of doing a dex build for PC but definetly doing a hexer starting out with a deprived build for maximum build, just found the bat staff and planning to base by build on that.
Just got to the mirror knight (why the name change) and the game keeps ramping up in awesomeness

 

[Hobo Elf]

I started a Hexer run today and it is definitely the hardest pure caster so far. Faith is still the best, Sorcery being better off than the Hexer in the beginning since you don't have to spread your stats too thin. Dark Orb is also a piece of shit of a spell due to the poor range. Can't snipe anyone with the binoculars. On the other hand you do get a Staff with S scaling in Darkness real early so it has its ups and downs.

But saying magic is the worst off here without trying a pure Faith caster is talking like someone who hasn't tried a pure Faith caster. Shit is crazy, yo. Still killing bosses with 4-5 Sunlight Spears in NG+.

I feel like we are playing two different games.

Hexers are the EASIEST casters. You can get the best hexing staff 2 or less hours, damage spells that rape everything, and it remains strong for the rest of the game.

We have a faster cast speed ring now which is shit and useless since the spells have hard caps for cast speed bonus which you will probably reach with high ATT and INT which is what you want anyway.

Where did you hear this?

Did you try the Miracle spells? They have a much longer range than the basic Hex nuke so you can snipe enemies from afar and they instagib most enemies right off the bat. Hex damage isn't bad once you get to the juicy spells, but Dark Orb's range is just too poor for it to be considered a trustworthy spell despite having a decent amount of casts and ok damage. There are too many situations where using binoculars to snipe enemies is a favorable approach. But like I said I'm still in the beginning and I have lots of spells to get, lots of Catalysts to upgrade and lots of stats to level before I can get a good approximation on what a Hexer can do. This is just an impression of the different casters in early gameplay after doing them all in near juxtapose.

And I read it somewhere that all the spells have their own individual hard caps for cast speed so stacking it heavily isn't going to do you many favors. I removed the faster cast ring from my Sorcerer and didn't notice any difference in speed. It's still a theory though and requires testing out to be sure, but what I said is based on my own experience

So I've got a Sorcerer going now and do I still need 20-30 adaptability or should I focus on another stat first?

Wouldn't touch adaptability to be honest. I found that the amount of Agility you get from ATT is enough.

 

[Surf Solar]

Quite disapointed that so much in this Games pvp revolves around those silly casters. IMO the focus should be on melee, but thats jst me.
also, is that huge Rat Boss optional only? I hope so because it keeps shredding me. Fuck that Rat Level anyway. I was looking forward to it, but Not being able to walk 5 meteres without being summoned again is tiresome. And yes I know I can use an item to leave the world of that 'invader'. Meh. Currently stuck on that tseldora cove blabla, in the pit where you find the Boss weapon Dealer. No idea how to move forward from there. And fuck those enemy casters there. That shit is fucking annoying.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Both Rat bosses are optional.

 

[Tribal Sarah]

Got to pharros cave or whatever its called. the first time i killed that elephant thing no problem then got whacked by a dwarf. now i cant get past the stupid elephant. i seem to be moving slower each time it kills me.