Help with miracles build for pve.

[Omero Guajakeño]

Hello, I want a character with a good miracle casting skills (support, damage and weapon buff) , a low requirements weapon and made a good lightning damage with melee weapon. Im thinking in something like this. https://mugenmonkey.com/darksouls2/68650 . I need your advice because im not so good at build planning.

[warslad]

Heavenly thunder is a boss wrecker with high faith and the slow health regen miracles are not to be underestimated. Dragon chime is the best miracle chime by far, but it has high requirements. The starting cleric chime or the one found in the lost Bastille are both decent choices as well. One is slightly faster and the other is slightly more powerful. As for early weapons, lighting rapier or mace both wreck face. Heide weapons are excellent as well, with innate lighting damage. Dragonslayer spear or defenders greatsword are good choices for later in the game. And if you want sunlight spear, do your sunbroing as early as possible. The agape ring can really help with this as well because you can just stay at an easy early boss and rack up sun medals.

[ShiroiŌkami (白い狼)]

Just to clear up about the chimes @warslad talked about.
Dragon chime requires 50 faith and you get it in rank 3 pilgrims of dark covenant. Has the best lightning damage and a fast casting speed.
Priest chime requires 18 faith and you find it in lost bastille after the ruin sentinels bossfight, near one of the pursuers. This one is pretty good if you aren't aiming for 50 fth. I'd highly recommend to infuse them with lightning if you are gonna run pure faith. Also a priest chime +8 is found in eleum loyce.

[TrueArchery]

Terribad build.

>Picks Sun Sword which is one of the weakest SS on a non-quality-build
>Blossom Kite Shield
>Ring of Prayer
>3 ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Endurance
>weird SL cap

How I fixed it:
https://mugenmonkey.com/darksouls2/68652

>50 Vigor, important no matter whether PvE or PvP
>no ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ base Endurance
>better Rings
>99 Agl is enough
>Better equipment choices: Foot Soldier's Sword, infused with any element (I'd recommend Dark), Lightning Dragon Chime is good, Bow/Crossbow (picking BOTH is redundant) are fairly useless since you got spells, if it's just for poisoning, use a Shortbow and Poison Arrows, not meeting the requirements shouldn't stop the poison buildup from working properly afaik, more efficient shield, Blue Dagger for additional spell-damage ONLY for that not for attacking, pull it out whenever you cast damaging spells
>better spells, this is a PvE loadout: Great LS >> Sunlight S, Sacred Oath is bad - Magic Barrier if cooping, Great Magic Barrier if solo, WoG is literally endgame of the endgame, GH>Soothing Sunlight in many cases, Heavenly Thunder is great against fat bosses or ganks

[TrueArchery]

Originally posted by ShiroiŌkami (白い狼):

Dragon chime requires 50 faith and you get it in rank 3 pilgrims of dark covenant.

Or you just kill that sonovabich and get it early in the Shaded Woods, the covenant is of no use for such a character.

[Kayneth]

Hold the Disc Chime in your left hand and the Dragon Chime in your right. Cast using the Dragon Chime.
The Disc Chime boosts the power of miracles by a little bit, and combined with other miracle and lightning boosting equipment (Sun Seal, Saint Hood) it allows your lightning bolts to actually prove effective against a variety of targets.

As i lost the character ("Noel") i did this on while resetting my PC, i can't remember my exact build, but it wasn't very unorthodox. 50FTH, 20 ATN, you know the stuff.

I used the Lightning Heide Spear, which is my favourite FTH weapon in-game. (It requires 25 DEX, though, so it might not be what you want. Get the Heide Sword instead.)
Though i gave up a bit on miracle damage by not wearing the Saint Set, and went instead with my all-time beloved Archdrake Set insteadfor reasons of not wanting to look weird.

[TrueArchery]

Originally posted by Kayneth:

Hold the Disc Chime in your left hand and the Dragon Chime in your right. Cast using the Dragon Chime.
The Disc Chime boosts the power of miracles by a little bit, and combined with other miracle and lightning boosting equipment (Sun Seal, Saint Hood) it allows your lightning bolts to actually prove effective against a variety of targets.

Just FYI, the Blue Dagger offers a 5% boost whereas the Disc Chime only offers a 3% boost.

It's hard to call the Saint's Hood a "boosting" item as it only increases Fth by 1 and adds 1 charge for each spell. It's inferior to the Hexer's Hood, even though low-charge spells won't really notice it, and to the Black Witch stuff which you cannot use without at least 20(?) Int though.

The Lightning Clutch Ring is another honorable mention for equipment.

[Kayneth]

Originally posted by TrueArchery:

Just FYI, the Blue Dagger offers a 5% boost whereas the Disc Chime only offers a 3% boost.

It's hard to call the Saint's Hood a "boosting" item as it only increases Fth by 1 and adds 1 charge for each spell. It's inferior to the Hexer's Hood, even though low-charge spells won't really notice it, and to the Black Witch stuff which you cannot use without at least 20(?) Int though.

The Lightning Clutch Ring is another honorable mention for equipment.

Ah, i was unaware of the exact values there, and had been treating the boosts as being some flat value for each item.

Wasn't there a headgear that boosted miracle effectiveness, or maybe i've confused it with some other item in a different game.

[Yal]

AFAIK there's no headgear that boosts a special spell school in DS2, but DS3 (and perhaps DS1?) has the Dusk Crown that boosts magic in general but increases taken spell damage a ton. DS2 mostly has a lot of headgear that adds stats, like the Dark Armor headpiece that adds 1 INT and 1FTH. Most notably, the King's Crown adds 3 intelligence and 3 faith, but you need some serious twinking to get a hold of that at a low level.

Saint's Hood actually adds 1 use per attuned scroll, so if you use a lot of spells with 1 use each (e.g. that super-fast fireball... was it called Chaos Bed Vestiges?) you can get pretty good mileage out of it.

Also worth noting is the Black Witch Hat that adds an attunement slot. You can also get the entire set for free if you light all the torches in The Gutter, it summons an NPC invader that drops the entire set on death (but with the Veil instead of the Hat).

[TrueArchery]

Originally posted by Kayneth:

Wasn't there a headgear that boosted miracle effectiveness, or maybe i've confused it with some other item in a different game.

Black Witch Domino Mask, it's for any school of magic

Originally posted by Yal:

Saint's Hood actually adds 1 use per attuned scroll, so if you use a lot of spells with 1 use each (e.g. that super-fast fireball... was it called Chaos Bed Vestiges?) you can get pretty good mileage out of it..

Getting good mileage out of a spell which needs 3 slots to even be attuned and can only be obtained once per NG-cycle, pretty ironic.

The idea is good though, but it's rather useful for i.e. Great Heal Excerpt, Outcry (still 2 slots to attune), weapon buffs, Homing (Crystal) Soulmasses, Repair, Soul Geyser, Soul Spear,... spells which don't require as many slots, but still have low charges.

[King Robert Baratheon]

Originally posted by ShiroiŌkami (白い狼):

Just to clear up about the chimes @warslad talked about.
Dragon chime requires 50 faith and you get it in rank 3 pilgrims of dark covenant. Has the best lightning damage and a fast casting speed.
Priest chime requires 18 faith and you find it in lost bastille after the ruin sentinels bossfight, near one of the pursuers. This one is pretty good if you aren't aiming for 50 fth. I'd highly recommend to infuse them with lightning if you are gonna run pure faith. Also a priest chime +8 is found in eleum loyce.

Or you could just kill Darkdiver Grandahl for the chime. If you don't need any of the hexes, sorcery, or bonfire ascetics he sells then I don't see why you wouldn't just kill him for the chime. Fighting Darklurker just to get that chime is not worth it.

[King Robert Baratheon]

Originally posted by TrueArchery:

Originally posted by Kayneth:

Wasn't there a headgear that boosted miracle effectiveness, or maybe i've confused it with some other item in a different game.

Black Witch Domino Mask, it's for any school of magic

Originally posted by Yal:

Saint's Hood actually adds 1 use per attuned scroll, so if you use a lot of spells with 1 use each (e.g. that super-fast fireball... was it called Chaos Bed Vestiges?) you can get pretty good mileage out of it..

Getting good mileage out of a spell which needs 3 slots to even be attuned and can only be obtained once per NG-cycle, pretty ironic.

The idea is good though, but it's rather useful for i.e. Great Heal Excerpt, Outcry (still 2 slots to attune), weapon buffs, Homing (Crystal) Soulmasses, Repair, Soul Geyser, Soul Spear,... spells which don't require as many slots, but still have low charges.

I'm pretty sure the black witch domino mask only buffs sorcery. The description of the mask says "Domino mask worn by Zullie the Witch, seducer of Alva the Wayfarer. Strengthens magic attacks but reduces max HP.". In the description of the Sunset Staff it says "A catalyst for sorceries and hexes. Particularly powerful for casting hexes.". See how it specifically mentions hexes as being the ideal school of magic for that staff. If the black witch domino mask buffed all schools of magic I figure it would specifically say so.

[TrueArchery]

Originally posted by Forossan Knight:

Originally posted by TrueArchery:

Black Witch Domino Mask, it's for any school of magic


Getting good mileage out of a spell which needs 3 slots to even be attuned and can only be obtained once per NG-cycle, pretty ironic.

The idea is good though, but it's rather useful for i.e. Great Heal Excerpt, Outcry (still 2 slots to attune), weapon buffs, Homing (Crystal) Soulmasses, Repair, Soul Geyser, Soul Spear,... spells which don't require as many slots, but still have low charges.

I'm pretty sure the black witch domino mask only buffs sorcery. The description of the mask says "Domino mask worn by Zullie the Witch, seducer of Alva the Wayfarer. Strengthens magic attacks but reduces max HP.". In the description of the Sunset Staff it says "A catalyst for sorceries and hexes. Particularly powerful for casting hexes.". See how it specifically mentions hexes as being the ideal school of magic for that staff. If the black witch domino mask buffed all schools of magic I figure it would specifically say so.

I think it buffs all kinds of spells. Didn't test it personally, but read the comments here:
https://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/693331-dark-souls-ii/68973069
http://steamcommunity.com/app/236430/discussions/0/38596748303169727/

The wikis only mention "spells", too, so nothing specific. It could mean both just magical damage like its descriptio suggests but also spells in general.

[King Robert Baratheon]

Originally posted by TrueArchery:

Originally posted by Forossan Knight:

I'm pretty sure the black witch domino mask only buffs sorcery. The description of the mask says "Domino mask worn by Zullie the Witch, seducer of Alva the Wayfarer. Strengthens magic attacks but reduces max HP.". In the description of the Sunset Staff it says "A catalyst for sorceries and hexes. Particularly powerful for casting hexes.". See how it specifically mentions hexes as being the ideal school of magic for that staff. If the black witch domino mask buffed all schools of magic I figure it would specifically say so.

I think it buffs all kinds of spells. Didn't test it personally, but read the comments here:
https://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/693331-dark-souls-ii/68973069
http://steamcommunity.com/app/236430/discussions/0/38596748303169727/

The wikis only mention "spells", too, so nothing specific. It could mean both just magical damage like its descriptio suggests but also spells in general.

Well consider me wrong then I guess. I agree with the person in the second thread though. It is not worth farming when it gives you such little extra magic damage and it removes a noticeable bit of health. Also if you care about fashion souls you'd have find something very specific to match it. It looks ugly as hell imo. Only a female character could make it work with some white armor or something (like the throne watcher set?) IMO.