Sorcery starts weak, then turns strong, but ends weak.

[Aetrion]

Sorcery is a bit of a rollercoaster in this game, because it starts out pretty weak early in the game, then becomes really powerful mid game, and then sort of fizzles out late game.

The biggest culprit here is that the enemies in this game are just absolute bullet sponges late in the game compared to previous From Soft titles. It's not that you can't kill them with sorcery, it's that it takes so many spells that you don't have the FP to keep it up, and even if you have a great int-scaling weapon you can't hold a candle to a real fighter in melee.

The fact that simple weapons have been removed from the game doesn't help. I'm not sure why they decided that FP regeneration wasn't allowed, but together with the fact that there aren't any highly efficient spells like GHSA and that enemies simply seem to have more health in this game than in previous games it really screws with endgame sorcery.

And yea, sure, there are some cheesy things you can do to basically melt a boss in a single spell, and people will say "sorcerers are really OP" when they see that on YouTube, but what they don't see is how much it sucks to just try and explore a map like the capital when you're going through a whole flask worth of FP to kill a patrolling knight.

[Butcher]

You basically want to kill everyone from range without them having a chance to stike you? Whatever "weak" magic you have it is still incomparable to melee risks.

[24/7🔴Triple B>Backpacks/Keys]

Sorcery starts really strong

[Agathocles69]

Sorcery is strong ...just for me

[Lunar Shower]

Originally posted by Aetrion:

Sorcery is a bit of a rollercoaster in this game, because it starts out pretty weak early in the game, then becomes really powerful mid game, and then sort of fizzles out late game.

The biggest culprit here is that the enemies in this game are just absolute bullet sponges late in the game compared to previous From Soft titles. It's not that you can't kill them with sorcery, it's that it takes so many spells that you don't have the FP to keep it up, and even if you have a great int-scaling weapon you can't hold a candle to a real fighter in melee.

The fact that simple weapons have been removed from the game doesn't help. I'm not sure why they decided that FP regeneration wasn't allowed, but together with the fact that there aren't any highly efficient spells like GHSA and that enemies simply seem to have more health in this game than in previous games it really screws with endgame sorcery.

And yea, sure, there are some cheesy things you can do to basically melt a boss in a single spell, and people will say "sorcerers are really OP" when they see that on YouTube, but what they don't see is how much it sucks to just try and explore a map like the capital when you're going through a whole flask worth of FP to kill a patrolling knight.

Best answer to this? Mix in a bit more melee, especially from something like the Dark Moon Great Sword or even Royal Greatsword. Hell the ever popular Moonveil is a fantastic dex/int option, and all you really need for amazing damage in any of these is to dump your points into int. While you can definitely try to play pure sorcery and hang back the entire game, its not quite as feasible as a healthy balance between melee and ranged attacks, though the spoilered option I mentioned above will actually give you not only a great scaling weapon, but one that has projectiles at the low FP cost of a weapon buff.

I swapped to sorcery for the funsies and the cool magic from my pseudo bleed build on bloodhound, which in itself was going great, but by and large I'd have to say even against some of the mroe late game oriented bosses ive faced its holding up well. Might be you need to upgrade your staff a bit, or switch to a better scaling one?

[Soyak Striker]

Start calculating damage per fp. Carian slicer is crazy high damage for only 4 fp

[Aetrion]

Originally posted by Butcher:

You basically want to kill everyone from range without them having a chance to stike you? Whatever "weak" magic you have it is still incomparable to melee risks.

This is a nonsense argument and you know it. Just about any serious enemy in the game has a way to get at you even if you're technically ranged. You have enemies with ranged attacks, you have enemies with shields, you have enemies that can charge, and enemies that swarm.

There are basically no fights where you're just safely sitting back deleting enemies with spells where you couldn't just as easily kill them in melee.

Originally posted by Crescent Star:

Start calculating damage per fp. Carian slicer is crazy high damage for only 4 fp

Also really defeats the purpose of playing a sorcerer unfortunately.

Originally posted by Lunar Shower:

I swapped to sorcery for the funsies and the cool magic from my pseudo bleed build on bloodhound, which in itself was going great, but by and large I'd have to say even against some of the mroe late game oriented bosses ive faced its holding up well. Might be you need to upgrade your staff a bit, or switch to a better scaling one?

Fighting bosses is fine as a sorcerer. The issue is doing stuff like exploring the capital where every other enemy is some meat-wall knight with a shield and 3000+ HP. You get two or three of them in a single encounter and it doesn't matter how good your staff is.

[Butcher]

Originally posted by Aetrion:

Originally posted by Butcher:

You basically want to kill everyone from range without them having a chance to stike you? Whatever "weak" magic you have it is still incomparable to melee risks.

This is a nonsense argument and you know it. Just about any serious enemy in the game has a way to get at you even if you're technically ranged. You have enemies with ranged attacks, you have enemies with shields, you have enemies that can charge, and enemies that swarm.

There are basically no fights where you're just safely sitting back deleting enemies with spells where you couldn't just as easily kill them in melee.

O rly? Did you count shielder boss from circle outside of godrick castle? You are literally untouchable as long as you use ranged.

[Butcher]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2773616869

[miscellaneous unc]

Yeah for sure. Its absolutely awful after a while to the point where its a waste of FP to cast anything.

[miscellaneous unc]

Originally posted by Crescent Star:

Start calculating damage per fp. Carian slicer is crazy high damage for only 4 fp

Not worth using over weapon arts late game. NG+ all sorceries are a joke in FP efficiency and an even bigger joke in the DPS department sadly.

[Aetrion]

Originally posted by Butcher:

O rly? Did you count shielder boss from circle outside of godrick castle? You are literally untouchable as long as you use ranged.

Ok, so there are a few enemies in the game where ranged makes it easy? That's like saying clubs are overpowered because of the one fight with the crystal golem in the mine.

[Butcher]

Originally posted by Aetrion:

Originally posted by Butcher:

O rly? Did you count shielder boss from circle outside of godrick castle? You are literally untouchable as long as you use ranged.

Ok, so there are a few enemies in the game where ranged makes it easy? That's like saying clubs are overpowered because of the one fight with the crystal golem in the mine.

Few? Most enemies with range shooting very slowly, while other part lacks ranged attacks entirely. Go on, take those annoying eagles from range and then claim sorcery is weak.

[Aetrion]

I'm not saying that there are no situations where sorcerers have the advantage, what I am saying is that late in the game enemies have so much HP that you cannot kill them without burning through your FP at a ridiculous rate as a sorcerer.

They removed pretty much all the efficiency options from DS3, like having simple weapons and using efficient spells like GHSA, while also giving the enemies way more health.

For every enemy that is easy and convenient to blow up from a distance there is an enemy that gets in your face and stays there, and good luck casting any spells on them. Rune bears are easy on a fighter, and complete hell on a caster for example.

[Power]

Hoarfrost stomp on a weapon scaling with Int. Map cleared in 1 FP bar. Easy mode.

[Aetrion]

Originally posted by Power:

Hoarfrost stomp on a weapon scaling with Int. Map cleared in 1 FP bar. Easy mode.

Yea yea yea, great, how does that fix the fact that casting spells isn't viable as a play style once every random rat has 1000HP?