Strength on a mage viable?

[Soulmancer]

It seems like the game doesn't want you to invest strength on a mage, I wanted to go tank battle mage... But it looks like you pretty much need dexterity or have crap casting speed.

[sophAur]

I'd use spells with already fast casting speed to fill in for the slow speed of str weapons, if I made a strength mage build

[Anzaman]

There's talisman that shortens cast times by 30 dex amount. So you could use that on your Strength Mage.

[Lesmir]

Originally posted by Soulmancer:

It seems like the game doesn't want you to invest strength on a mage, I wanted to go tank battle mage... But it looks like you pretty much need dexterity or have crap casting speed.

you have multiple choice here

you could simply over level , after all you can max all stat

if you want to limit your stats/lv use faster cast gear and fast cast spell , even at 50 dex ( cap for cast speed ) its barely noticable

there is many way to play mage too , you could go full str with just enough magic for buff
for range attack anyway you can just spam weapon art , get a good one , upgrade your weapon and put some point into MIND to get extra FP and have fun shooting stuff that does more damage than spell anyway

[Shiggieb00]

Strength is probably the best choice for a tank/mage...

I have 24 strength myself.. I can use a jellyfish shield which is perfect 100% physical damage reduction so im fine with that.

Some weapons have like, an anti-buff property.. like moonveil cant be buffed.. theres probably more.. I dont know.. This might apply to shields as well. Just get the magic shield spell so you shield is super powerful..

int / a little strength / endurance

youre good to go..

Usually I see people trying this kind of thing with faith builds.. but, I dont think theres a shield incantation, so I dont know if that would work.. BUT, you might wanna put about 15-18 points in to faith so you can do dragon sorcery as you tank.. Basically land a big rotbreath or 2, keep freezing em down, keep your shield up..

[Soulmancer]

It says arcane to also helps sorcery but it's pretty vague? seems like trying to go tank mage means spreading yourself on stats since everything seems to benefit a mage in some form or another.

[Calsetes]

Do you want to use a heavy weapon, or just heavy armor? If it's heavy armor, then you want endurance, not strength.

[Soulmancer]

doesn't strength also help physical defense though?

[ColonelBaker]

Dex hardly increases casting speed. Just use the casting speed talisman and build a STR mage if you want to use a str weapon or shield, otherwise just level up endurance for heavier armor. The physical defense you gain from leveling STR is probably marginal ( I don't know the numbers), but there's a talisman that helps with that anyway. If I was you I would build towards whatever build sounds fun. You can respec later if it doesn't work out.

[Netsa]

Dex barely affects casting speed, so I don't know why you couldn't just use the blue greatsword and leave it at that. Your stats may spread a little thin, but not any thinner than a Quality build.

The only thing that's worrisome is that I'm not sure there's a Staff version of Clawmark Seal (scaling with Strength). That means if you build equal Strength, your spell power is going to be lower. It might be a better idea to lean heavier on Intelligence, and only build enough Strength to one-hand (or 2h) the weapon you're slapping a good Int-friendly Affinity on.

[ImHelping]

I think the issue is less "Dex helps casting speed!" and more "STR weapons, even the lighter ones, are generally going to be more weight needed per damage than Dex flavor".

Throw in the fact that if you use weapon buff spells, faith or int, they are generally "per hit" so a slower weapon is not going to get as many results as a lighter one you can swing faster even when using strong attacks, or has a multi hit attack, etc.

For example (incantations but same concept for sorcery) if my budget 15 faith man casts lightning weapon buff, that is 80 lightning (sometimes 79 because ???) added whether I use my favorite knight greatsword, or a faster longsword. Or if I use the regular poison buff spell, again, per hit so my knight greatsword or an even bigger weapon will have trouble causing (♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ weak garbage anyways) poison compared to a faster lighter weapon.

naked wizard with a boat anchor or half a tree for a club can work, if you are willing to pay the extra levels for it... but it will be going against various gimmick expectations of "You need to crank up INT not just to learn spells, but so the damage is not entirely trash" and then needing to carry it, have the stamina to use it, all before even considering if there will be any element/status per hit action involved as slower weapon can't take advantage of as well.

[Netsa]

Wait, are you building Faith or Intelligence?

Originally posted by Soulmancer:

doesn't strength also help physical defense though?

Yeah, it does. It's all flat defense, though, not % mitigation. It still helps, but it's not going to make you invincible or anything.