Sorcery is NOT Overpowered

[Casul Gamer]

Edit: Changed the title of my post (originally titled 'Sorcery is WEAK'). People are telling me sorcery is strong, but only with fully maxed out stats and end game gear. So yes, sorcery CAN be strong with a specific build, but it's NOT overpowered like soulsheads claim.

And people are asking my stats. I'm at Elden beast with 18 DEX, 32 STR, and around 52 INT. Everything else in stamina and vigor (over 50 vigor and maybe 30 stamina). Before 40 INT, I was using the best staff in the game for that INT level and after 42 I'm using best for that category. INT was ALWAYS my highest scaling stat throughout my playthrough

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I made a battlemage/spellblade build for my first character and played mostly blind. I leveled my INT up to 50 by the end of the game and had the best staves for my INT. However, I rarely used sorcery.

I wasn't trying to prove anything by not using sorcery much. It just wasn't as effective in most situations. Most bosses have good gap closers that prevent ranged attacks to a certain extent and summons die after a few hits so they only distract them for a short period at best. I also ran out of FP after only a few casts.

Yes, there were situations were sorcery was more useful than melee, but those situations were only a small minority. Also, I'm sure there's some meta builds that go all-in on sorcery that are powerful, but 50 int by end game seemed like a significant enough investment that it should have done more. Going multi-class did prevent me from getting higher FP tho.

[Casul Gamer]

Ursprungligen skrivet av D. Flame:

Ursprungligen skrivet av Casul Gamer:

Well, INT was my highest scaling stat. It's just that I didn't raise focus (or even higher INT) bc I was putting points into other stats. My point was more that (ranged) magic isn't overpowered like everyone says. If it was overpowered, I could minmax INT and still have it outshine melee. It was pretty powerful early game, but it just didn't scale enough.

Literally what most people say is the hardest boss in the game:

https://youtu.be/lOpxKKF7MIM?si=RQjWanKdkOf-OyhN

...completely destroyed by magic spam in like 2 minutes and 30 seconds. That's not even accounting for the kamehameha cheese.

First of all, Ranni's Dark Moon requires 68 INT. Second of all, it costs 57 FP to cast. My max FP with battlemage helm is around 65 iirc (around 72 without). So that requires me to put another 10-15 points into INT and many points into focus to have enough FP to cast Dark Moon more than once.

[D. Flame]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Casul Gamer:

Ursprungligen skrivet av D. Flame:

Literally what most people say is the hardest boss in the game:

https://youtu.be/lOpxKKF7MIM?si=RQjWanKdkOf-OyhN

...completely destroyed by magic spam in like 2 minutes and 30 seconds. That's not even accounting for the kamehameha cheese.

First of all, Ranni's Dark Moon requires 68 INT. Second of all, it costs 57 FP to cast. My max FP with battlemage helm is around 65 iirc (around 72 without). So that requires me to put another 10-15 points into INT and many points into focus to have enough FP to cast Dark Moon more than once.

So you are bad at builds too. Got it.

[Xengre]

Ursprungligen skrivet av MjKorz:

Until you get one shot by the boss. Meanwhile, strengthchads can just safely poke from behind a shield or outright trade with bosses while using two-handers.

Magic is weak, because you end up being extremely squishy. I played the game twice: as a pure sorcerer and as a strength-based heavy armor greatshield + spear user. The melee build was infinitely safer to play, I only had to roll through enemy grab attacks and had a heavy load the entire game. Meanwhile, on a sorcerer you get chunked by missing one roll lmao.

What do you mean?

Why does going as a magic user mandate that you supposedly cannot level Vigor? Any experienced Souls/ER player knows to level Vigor as a major priority even on magic user characters (unless they're some type of giga-chad going glass canon for early uber nukes, aka they fully know the risks and know they're trading massive amounts of survivability for a minor dmg increase because they're super confident they can survive regardless).

A melee character as you said can level Vigor + Endurance + Strength or Dex.
A magic user can level Vigor + Int or Faith (or hyrbid) + Mind + minor to moderate Endurance.

Realistically, a caster can level a moderate amount of Mind and Endurance treating it closer to a single stat comparatively to melee builds. Thus you're presenting two types of characters with three core stats worth to level and both are using Vigor. Further, many melee builds want a small to moderate amount of mind, too, for Ash of War usage and, if their build is competent, some faith spell usage (unless roleplay). In reality, you don't need a huge mind investment and a caster can benefit from Endurance but does not need a large amount, either.

Now, a hybrid spellsword is going to go for less extreme Int or Faith and split some of it towards Str/Dex as necessary, etc. as the weapon / Ash of War and a few more mid-range / lower spells are their core workload rather than high end spells. In the end, they still will invest in Vigor because it is basically the same just a slightly different split.

The issue is you are thinking that a magic build is somehow investing more stats into a greater split than is actually occurring and thus cannot invest in Vigor, or as prior pointed out you feel that Vigor investment is literally taboo for magic users.

Magic users can also use medium shields with the shield spell buff or ash of war to achieve 100% block like Greatshields and it has good duration but is way lighter than a Greatshield. Thus they're equivalent to the melee build you mentioned.

As for armor? Well, if you want to try to find my post history showing the math or the lazier method just look up why "fashion souls" is a common FROM meme for their games, this one included, you will understand that heavy armor isn't doing what you think it is unless you are very specifically using a nice stat of the right buffs, talisman, etc. all on top of each other (just heavy armor alone is insanely worthless).

Further, be it full on casters or a spellsword (light or heavy melee user) they have plenty of ranged options which are much safer as well as fast options for aggressive bosses.

I should also point out many of the best spells are of low to mid requirement to rock most bosses with, granted some of the more hyper builds will need higher magic to One Punch Man a boss into oblivion but you're making a very extreme trade off for such power (and with the right talisman/buffs you can actually reach such stats with way lower investment so you can still go Vigor, etc.).

Your entire assumption regarding the survivability of a magic based build is erroneous.

[Casul Gamer]

Ursprungligen skrivet av DragonSoundxSG:

Ursprungligen skrivet av Casul Gamer:

First of all, Ranni's Dark Moon requires 68 INT. Second of all, it costs 57 FP to cast. My max FP with battlemage helm is around 65 iirc (around 72 without). So that requires me to put another 10-15 points into INT and many points into focus to have enough FP to cast Dark Moon more than once.

80 Int is the goal. Raise FP appropriately.

Once you hit 80, the scaling on the most powerful staffs kick-in. And you get to use a unique one that has a devastating melee attack.

I edited my post and changed the title because I think that was confusing people. My point is that even when INT was my highest scaling stat, ranged sorcery was not enough for bosses.

I was playing mostly blind so I had no idea the soft cap was so much higher than 40, but if I was doing a pure magic build I would have at least leveled up focus. But even then, I wonder if I would have just gone with melee sorcery for efficiency.

I made a pure faith character recently and wanted to a mainly caster build since my first char ended up mostly melee. Nope. I found Sacred Blade right at the start and it's as good or better than my incantations. I used wing of astel and then switched to MLG towards the end of my battlemage playthough and now I'm stuck with the same thing with cleric

[D. Flame]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Casul Gamer:

Ursprungligen skrivet av DragonSoundxSG:

80 Int is the goal. Raise FP appropriately.

Once you hit 80, the scaling on the most powerful staffs kick-in. And you get to use a unique one that has a devastating melee attack.

I edited my post and changed the title because I think that was confusing people. My point is that even when INT was my highest scaling stat, ranged sorcery was not enough for bosses.

I was playing mostly blind so I had no idea the soft cap was so much higher than 40, but if I was doing a pure magic build I would have at least leveled up focus. But even then, I wonder if I would have just gone with melee sorcery for efficiency.

I made a pure faith character recently and wanted to a mainly caster build since my first char ended up mostly melee. Nope. I found Sacred Blade right at the start and it's as good or better than my incantations. I used wing of astel and then switched to MLG towards the end of my battlemage playthough and now I'm stuck with the same thing with cleric

You can just respec.

[Sgt. Flaw]

Sorc is all strategy....it's quite easy after you develop a solid strategy for the boss your fighting.

Had problems with Fire Giant till I just decided to get up in his face and comet Azur his ass....he took 4 solid flasks with the tear but I managed to dodge his ♥♥♥♥ and get in there for each one..I'm sure Mimic or Alexander would've made the fight trivial.

I'm honestly only worried about Loretta(Haligtree)...Fire Giant was pretty easy once I got a method down.

[Xengre]

OP, if you are curious about other int builds/strategies just check YouTube. You can find, for example, Malenia being melted with numerous builds some high stats some much more moderate. Some methods inflict sheer DPS and stagger lock while others abuse the range. Some like the high Int builds instead opt to nuke.

Here are some alternative creative examples that don't require high stats:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7o95BLyUGM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ke1M-dZG1C8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fn199ToQ_vM

[Casul Gamer]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Xengre:

Realistically, a caster can level a moderate amount of Mind and Endurance treating it closer to a single stat comparatively to melee builds. Thus you're presenting two types of characters with three core stats worth to level and both are using Vigor. Further, many melee builds want a small to moderate amount of mind, too, for Ash of War usage and, if their build is competent, some faith spell usage (unless roleplay). In reality, you don't need a huge mind investment and a caster can benefit from Endurance but does not need a large amount, either.

Now, a hybrid spellsword is going to go for less extreme Int or Faith and split some of it towards Str/Dex as necessary, etc. as the weapon / Ash of War and a few more mid-range / lower spells are their core workload rather than high end spells. In the end, they still will invest in Vigor because it is basically the same just a slightly different split.

The issue is you are thinking that a magic build is somehow investing more stats into a greater split than is actually occurring and thus cannot invest in Vigor, or as prior pointed out you feel that Vigor investment is literally taboo for magic users.

Magic users can also use medium shields with the shield spell buff or ash of war to achieve 100% block like Greatshields and it has good duration but is way lighter than a Greatshield. Thus they're equivalent to the melee build you mentioned.

As for armor? Well, if you want to try to find my post history showing the math or the lazier method just look up why "fashion souls" is a common FROM meme for their games, this one included, you will understand that heavy armor isn't doing what you think it is unless you are very specifically using a nice stat of the right buffs, talisman, etc. all on top of each other (just heavy armor alone is insanely worthless).

Further, be it full on casters or a spellsword (light or heavy melee user) they have plenty of ranged options which are much safer as well as fast options for aggressive bosses.

I should also point out many of the best spells are of low to mid requirement to rock most bosses with, granted some of the more hyper builds will need higher magic to One Punch Man a boss into oblivion but you're making a very extreme trade off for such power (and with the right talisman/buffs you can actually reach such stats with way lower investment so you can still go Vigor, etc.).

Your entire assumption regarding the survivability of a magic based build is erroneous.

Yeah. I had 32 STR so I could use a good shield and put points into endurance (in addition to vigor) for stamina for the shield and also hoping extra armor would help (I know 90% is fashion souls, but since I also got stamina figured maybe it would help a little with defense).

Then 18 DEX to wield the weapons I wanted (and DEX boosts cast time so it actually is helping slightly). So then I didn't have points left for focus or higher INT. I had to rely mostly on melee for the later bosses

I know you were responding to someone who seemed like they were playing a pure sorc so maybe that's different, but in their defense most people didn't realize the softcaps for vigor were 40/60.

I think Dark Souls 2 had the highest levels of any souls game prior to ER and vigor soft caps were 20/50 in that game. Dark souls 1/3 are weird. There's a bell curve in the beginning and then a soft cap afterwards, but that's also lower than ER.

[Dedprice]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Casul Gamer:

Edit: Changed the title of my post (originally titled 'Sorcery is WEAK'). People are telling me sorcery is strong, but only with fully maxed out stats and end game gear. So yes, sorcery CAN be strong with a specific build, but it's NOT overpowered like soulsheads claim.

And people are asking my stats. I'm at Elden beast with 18 DEX, 32 STR, and around 52 INT. Everything else in stamina and vigor (over 50 vigor and maybe 30 stamina). Before 40 INT, I was using the best staff in the game for that INT level and after 42 I'm using best for that category. INT was ALWAYS my highest scaling stat throughout my playthrough

--------------------------

I made a battlemage/spellblade build for my first character and played mostly blind. I leveled my INT up to 50 by the end of the game and had the best staves for my INT. However, I rarely used sorcery.

I wasn't trying to prove anything by not using sorcery much. It just wasn't as effective in most situations. Most bosses have good gap closers that prevent ranged attacks to a certain extent and summons die after a few hits so they only distract them for a short period at best. I also ran out of FP after only a few casts.

Yes, there were situations were sorcery was more useful than melee, but those situations were only a small minority. Also, I'm sure there's some meta builds that go all-in on sorcery that are powerful, but 50 int by end game seemed like a significant enough investment that it should have done more. Going multi-class did prevent me from getting higher FP tho.

youre at 52 int meaning you can use lusats (which is one of the OP items) but if youre using magic hoping for big spells = big damage youre going to be disappointed, id rec 60 int and regal carian staff which actually has higher scaling and sometimes damage than lusats (with 60 int) 60 is also the hard cap for int, meaning you havent even hit that.

on top of this magic has the second lowest resistance in game to most enemies and to other players in pvp so it excels there if you know how to use magic. (sense you use lusats im sure you know that carian slicer does absurd damage for a tiny fp use spell that comes out so quick)

so when people say magic is op.. well it actually is more so a fact.

additonally magic has arguably the best spells covering every need and want in game. close range, long range, quick slow, status, high poise damage, supportive, defensive, aoe theres a spell that hits all of these. the only thing magic doesnt have (or int dumping for that matter) is healing. without the need to invest in anything else.

[Dedprice]

someone said magic cant fire and forget (comet) and one spell wont single handedly win you a fight (azure comet builds, meteor showr/gravity builds or just spam ancient death as it causes flinch on almost everything)

also OP you technically dont even need 60 int. just equip moonveil and join the scrubs of "no skill" if you want elden ring to be easy.

if youre str and dont touch dex (maidenless) go to hogwarts and kill those stone headed mages with a sword until you get two to drop, theyre rare, youll know you got it when it mentions "sword made of wood" in the description and dual wield them, str and int are their highest stat scales. ive used them in pvp and pve and their damage destroys early-end game, still even used them into ng 3 or 4

[Dirak2012]

With the mimic tear spamming rock sling with me (no other spell or weapon used), the fight with the final bosses barely even registered.

[Xengre]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Casul Gamer:

Ursprungligen skrivet av Xengre:

-snip-

Yeah. I had 32 STR so I could use a good shield and put points into endurance (in addition to vigor) for stamina for the shield and also hoping extra armor would help (I know 90% is fashion souls, but since I also got stamina figured maybe it would help a little with defense).

Then 18 DEX to wield the weapons I wanted (and DEX boosts cast time so it actually is helping slightly). So then I didn't have points left for focus or higher INT. I had to rely mostly on melee for the later bosses

I know you were responding to someone who seemed like they were playing a pure sorc so maybe that's different, but in their defense most people didn't realize the softcaps for vigor were 40/60.

I think Dark Souls 2 had the highest levels of any souls game prior to ER and vigor soft caps were 20/50 in that game. Dark souls 1/3 are weird. There's a bell curve in the beginning and then a soft cap afterwards, but that's also lower than ER.

No problem to add your take even though it was directed at them.

Yes, one of the biggest issues we see with people finding this game (and DS) harder than it should be is not knowing certain basic build knowledge like how poorly offensive stats scale compared to Vigor, some basic strategic knowledge, and certain mechanical nuances. Vigor was a particularly problematic knowledge point for a significant period of time when Dark Souls 3 came out but fortunately the community got a grasp around it with some of the longtime veterans helping spread the knowledge and it started to carry over to Elden Ring. Still, Vigor is a sore point for newer players. The knowledge cap is easily one of the primary contributing factors to these game's difficulty rather than the lack of the fabled l33t skillz.

As for going pure mage that can still have plenty of Vigor as I mentioned so if you ever try to go that route don't neglect your Vigor. :P

I wish rather than a Bell Curve they used an S-Line curve for Vigor, lowered base weapon scaling some, and did buffed weapon/catalyst scaling to make investment have real impact and forced people to prioritize rather than everyone largely ending up at the same final result essentially.

Yeah, DS2 is weird. overpowered healing, actual genuine twinks because of how the memory matchmaking can be exploited, Agility stat, insane amounts of health (2.5k+, but can be boosted to over 3.6k), and so on.

Hopefully their next major release will take more time to flesh such systems out to make them more defining, granted it is FROM.

[Humpenstilzchen]

As with everything the overpoweredness of sorcery only starts showing with knowledge of how to minmax your character effectively, which talismans benefit the build and which spells can be used to your advantage.

Sorcery is very much overpowered because not only does it allow you to fight stuff from safe distance it also has the best buffs in the game which allow you to nuke everything.

Without wanting to write a novel here on what to do ect bp. Just watch this guy doing a sorcery only run to get some inspiration on what crazy things you can do with sorcery.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tNzD6FYPEM

[DELAMAIN]

Watch guide.
If want pure spell caster its Astrologer ( no melee) . I play like this now.
Only spells you need :
Glinstone comet shard or comet, kirian slicer , full moon, terra Magicka. Thats it.
60 int or 80. Not less, not more.
All this rain of stars bla bla...its for pvp.
You use meteorite staff<academy staff<regal/lusat staffs.

Or you can ask someone to drop you two staff of loss . Make MOST OP caster build for pve. But its bec only one spell NIGHT COMET.

[DELAMAIN]

https://youtu.be/1KDq4b7eyIU?si=aIzrQN_pSafDS6Id