Is pyromancy viable in DS 2?

[†Deicide†]

The reason I'm asking is because I always has been a melee kind of player until DS 3. I started a new playthrough on DS 3 as a pyro, and I'm having a blast. Pun intended. Is pyromancy worth a shot on DS 2 as well?

[WickedRequiem]

It's pretty decent.
Having access to defensive pyromancy spells (aka fire resist spells) becomes pretty handy in certain parts of the game.

As for offense... it's decent enough.
It has it's own weapn buff spell (fire damage, of course), powerful aoe spells, single target spells with a decent casting number, etc etc.

[Dexter]

Yup tho some of the spells consume crazy amount of stamina.
Can't remember if going 30/30 or pure int is better, check character planners and wiki/fextralife for it.

[King Robert Baratheon]

It is but the early game is a very rough start as there isn't even a pyro class to start with. Even though the cleric started class is a very slow and clunky character at the beginning (low endurance and adp) it has high faith which is helpful I suppose (pyromancy scales with int and faith in dark souls 2). Or you can start as a sorcerer and just level faith later. A way to use pyromancy somewhat early on is to to choose the knight class because it starts with the most amount of hp, choose the life ring as the starter gift, gather the few lootable souls in the tutorial area, speed run through heide's tower of flame and do the dragonrider cheese, buy the cat ring from the cat npc in majula, use the rest of the souls to level up vigor a bunch, then drop down the well to get to the gutter. Speedrun through the gutter to get the dark pyromancy flame which you'll use temporarily until you get the regular pyro flame. Also speedrun to the end of the gutter which is the entry to the Black Gulch where you'll find a Fragrant Branch of Yore which you'll use to unpetrify the pyromancy trainer Rosabeth of Melfia. Before you drop down to the entrance to the black gulch there are about 5 jars of acid that will break your gear. Break them with projectiles like fire bombs. Also be careful of the hollows with dark broken straight swords (it literally has a dark aura around it). They do way too much damage, lol. Don't upgrade the dark pyro flame as it scales with hollowing. You get the regular pyro flame in a metal chest (plus the fireball spell) after you beat Flexile Sentry, which is in the area after Heide's Tower of Flame.


tl;dr I just remembered you can buy a Fragrant Branch of Yore from Merchant Hag Melentia in SOTFS for 12,000 souls . Also there's a fragrant branch of yore in a metal chest towards the end of No Man's Wharf. But to get the dark pyromancy flame you do have to do most of what I said above.

[†Deicide†]

Yeah that's one thing I noticed from DS 1 and 3. The lack of a pyromancer starting class. Hence why I asked cause I was a bit confused.

[King Robert Baratheon]

Originally posted by †Deicide†:

Yeah that's one thing I noticed from DS 1 and 3. The lack of a pyromancer starting class. Hence why I asked cause I was a bit confused.

I try not to sh*t on dark souls 2 a lot as it was my first dark souls game and I've grown to love it but I HATE that there's no pyromancer starter class. Instead we got the freaking "explorer" class, lol. Sure it has high adp, some useful loot and gear but it's still a dumb class imo. I wonder what they would have made the pyro starter class look like in Dark Souls 2...

[TrueArchery]

Eh just cheese dragonrider and summon lucatiel for the flexile sentry, it's completely pointless to go for the dark flame.
Grab the branch in the gutter, unpetrify licia, buy her spells and fire seeds, kill her for another seed, talk to the sorcerer dude in the gutter. He'll move to majula and he can upgrade your pyro glove aswell. Easy +4 flame and a good supply of basic spells. You can get another fire seed easily by running thru the first part of the shaded woods, its in the foggy area near vengarls head.

Its by far not as rough as starting as a miracle caster.

[King Robert Baratheon]

Originally posted by TrueArchery:

Eh just cheese dragonrider and summon lucatiel for the flexile sentry, it's completely pointless to go for the dark flame.
Grab the branch in the gutter, unpetrify licia, buy her spells and fire seeds, kill her for another seed, talk to the sorcerer dude in the gutter. He'll move to majula and he can upgrade your pyro glove aswell. Easy +4 flame and a good supply of basic spells. You can get another fire seed easily by running thru the first part of the shaded woods, its in the foggy area near vengarls head.

Its by far not as rough as starting as a miracle caster.

sorcerer dude in No Man's Wharf*

ftfy

[TrueArchery]

Originally posted by R'hllor, Lord of Light:

Originally posted by TrueArchery:

Eh just cheese dragonrider and summon lucatiel for the flexile sentry, it's completely pointless to go for the dark flame.
Grab the branch in the gutter, unpetrify licia, buy her spells and fire seeds, kill her for another seed, talk to the sorcerer dude in the gutter. He'll move to majula and he can upgrade your pyro glove aswell. Easy +4 flame and a good supply of basic spells. You can get another fire seed easily by running thru the first part of the shaded woods, its in the foggy area near vengarls head.

Its by far not as rough as starting as a miracle caster.

sorcerer dude in No Man's Wharf*

ftfy

Oops right

[Omero Guajakeño]

It is, I don't have spend a single int/fait point on my warrior pyromancer and works very well, using great fireball of chaos, toxic mist and flame weapon. Im working to get the "forbiden sun" but it's only available on NG++

[TrueArchery]

Originally posted by RangerHax:

Im working to get the "forbiden sun" but it's only available on NG++

that's just wrong

[King Robert Baratheon]

Originally posted by RangerHax:

It is, I don't have spend a single int/fait point on my warrior pyromancer and works very well, using great fireball of chaos, toxic mist and flame weapon. Im working to get the "forbiden sun" but it's only available on NG++

NG levels have nothing to do with how you get Forbidden Sun. You just have to do Navlaan's questline. Of course if you want another Forbidden Sun "spell tome" you probably have to go to NG+, do the questline again, and so on into further new game cycles.

[Yal]

I'd say starting as Cleric is the best choice if you're going for a pyromancy build - you have sorta the same stats as the classic DS1 pyromancers (focus on brute force over finesse weaponwise), and the Mace is super-effective against the enemies in Heide's Tower of Flame. The game itself gets much easier if you've got access to 3 extra heals from the get-go as well, since your Estus Flask starts at a single use (even though you can get another use in Majula and two more in FoFG) and you have a bunch of Faith to scale your fire with.

[Carlos]

I found a pyro gets fewer spell charges than a sorcerer with the GHSA, hexer with the Dark Orb or a paladin with lightning spears. You get just a few fire orbs and even fewer fireballs. Same with other good pyro spells. And you get the Great Chaos Fireball only on NG++.

The good thing is there are no stat requirements so you have pyro spells always available if you're any of the other spellcaster types.

[76561198452847902]

make sure you kill licia for her hat. it gives +10% to all your spells number of casts, with a minimum of +1.

[TrueArchery]

Originally posted by BWAHAHAH IM NOT BANNED TROLOLOL:

make sure you kill licia for her hat. it gives +10% to all your spells number of casts, with a minimum of +1.

Actually it only increases them by 1, never any more. hexers hood is 10%, rounded up. Saints is essentially just a discount hexers hood.