Spirit / Spellcaster builds seem really underpowered in this game

[Aetrion]

I usually play some kind of mage in Souls Like games, because it's just how I enjoy playing the most. In this game I find that playing as a mage makes the game a LOT harder.

If you want your spells to do good damage you have to invest deep into the Spirit stat, which means you'll be neglecting your actual attack power. But the game uses a system where in order to charge spells up you need to attack enemies first.

You also take a damage penalty when your sync rate is low, so you'll do even less damage with those attacks while you're charging up.

Then on top of that if you want to actually use your sync rate to cast attack spells you can't use it to cast heals and buffs instead, so your effectiveness in melee becomes even lower.

And if all of that wasn't enough there is only a tiny number of weapons in the game that scale on spirit, and they deal elemental damage which some enemies are highly resistant to so you'll need to level multiple of them meaning your weapons will be underleveled for most of the game too.

Doing less damage also means you stagger enemies less, so the difficulty of melee is higher for the caster build than for other builds.

And when you have jumped through all of those hoops and actually managed to earn yourself enough sync rate in a boss fight to unload with spells, you will quickly find that most of the difficult bosses in the game are so mobile and so aggressive that actually hitting them with high damage spells like the missile launcher is neither easy nor guaranteed.

I'm fine with a system that makes it so a mage can't just nuke the boss from a safe distance, but this game takes it way too far. You end up having to fight in melee in a severely nerfed state just to earn the privilege of casting an attack spell and then you still have to find an opening in the absolutely insane onslaught of attacks the bosses level at you to do that, and hope it actually hits.

[True Patriot]

Nah dude I cheesed the last few bosses using Ex-Railgun, the Seal that increases spell damage, and high Spirit. Spells in this game are very strong. I'm on New Game + using the Seal that heavily increases lightning damage spells/weapon skills with high Spirit and just melting enemies. Think Dark Souls 3 sorcery in terms of when it gets strong, it takes mid to end game to get going but it's really, really good.

[peacefulrespite]

• Use the Tree Seal you get from the secret area in Milaire's quest that passively replenishes Sync Rate over time to about 70-80%, I can't remember exactly the number.
• Level Spirit and Vitality mainly (this is what increases sync rate from melee attacks)
• Equip the Normal Seals called Scattered Stars (The Parry Frame ability becomes free) and the Slayer/Tyrant series (Recover more sync rate on Fatal Strikes)
• Use a Greatsword or Lance weapon because they seem to be very slightly faster at getting Sync to 100%, preferably something with a good skill
• Gather up a bunch of consumable items spells and buffs to chuck on your hotbar each fight
Now you can always stay safe and mainly cast spells, with minimal melee usage.