Is sorcery even viable in PVE?

[BoeRBeL]

Yo, I have been playing DS1 and DS2 alot and now i was testing out DS3.

I personally feel that a "int" build so far is very bad and so sloooooooooow. I even think that Soul Spear is a terrible spell and the only thing so far that seems good is farron flash sword. Maybe crystal spear is nice, but not high enough lvl for it yet.

I mostly played dex with support of spells, and in the others souls games hex was a favorite. Maybe its abit to earlie and I dont have the right gear since im not done with my first playtrough yet. I also want to to some pvp later and im not quite sure witch direction to take. Is it maybe better with faith? Or even a quality build? I just know for sure that a pure STR build is out of the question.



Stats:

Starting: class knight
vigor:20
ATT: 14:
END: 20
Str: 18
Dex: 22:
int: 40

Weapon/cataclyst:

Crystal astora greatsword+9 with crystal infuse
Heretic staff + 6

Rings:
leo ring
sage ring
Bellowed dragoncrest ring
Ring of favor

[gackie]

Yes.

[bozohontas]

Very viable for PVE, you just have to get the right stats and equipment.
Crown of Dusk and Scholar Candlestick for additional spell damage.
Going to 60 INT is also worth it for additional spell damage.
In coop I see people destroying bosses with this setup all the time.

[Bourbon Kid]

Magic is viable in PvE. Can't speak for PvP but I got one-shotted by some magic users.
Sadly, I've never experienced that much of magic in Dark Souls bcs it's boring for me

[ravethehunter]

what are you saying magic is easy mode in pve

[Aruezi]

My last playthrough I went full sorcery and it was probably the easiest run I've had through any of the Soul series. Great Heavy Soul Arrow and Soul Greatsword solve nearly every problem you'll run into through out the game.

Just prioritize getting your int to 60 by the time you get to the High Walls of Lothric and stack the Young Dragon, Bellowing Dragoncrest and Sage Rings as well as the Dusk Crown. So long as you've been upgrading your catalyst to keep up with your melee weapon you should be able to kill nearly any non boss in one or two spells.

[Tapsa]

I have done multiple magic builds in DS1 and DS2, but when I made my first build magic in DS3, I ended up using rapier more than magic, because no matter how much I tried to invest into magic, the rapier just kept being better most of the time.

[BoeRBeL]

So im in duke Archives Atm, should I still use Great heavy soul arrow? Mostly I have been meleeing down everything with a Katana.

[Tapsa]

There you have it, if you need to resort to melee, sorcery is not viable (in the way it was in DS1 and DS2).

[GT-R]

Yes.
No, against Aldrich.

[Zeretrelle]

Sorcerers have a really hard time early-mid game coz

1) we need to find most damage boosting items
2) we need to find good spells
3) early INT scaling is ♥♥♥♥♥♥

but

Once you get high INT, upgrade catalyst(use the ebst ones) and get damage boosting items you will be obliterating non-magic resistant bosses and mobs

In the end you need INT=60 court sorcerer staff+10, scholar candlestick(dont have to meet requirements) in offhand, crown of dusk, 2 dragon rings, sage ring and magic clutch ring(careful with this one)

When fighting bosses add to that staff buff and if you have sunlight straight sword and can use it (12\12) then you can buff yourself with +10% damage\absorption spell

[Aruezi]

Everything in the Archives dies as easily to Great Heavy Soul Arrows as anything else. Oddly.

Honestly the only boss fights that sorcery seems to fail at are Crystal Sage and Aldrich. Also Prince Lothric is resistant to Sorcery, but his brother is equilly weak to it, so it balances out.

[SuperCrumpets]

its good if you abuse hidden body, which for some reason is cheap enough to cast that with alittle FP regen you can keep it going literally forever.
then just backstab everything

[Zeretrelle]

If you have reached the archives then you must have

1) Bellowing Dragoncrest Ring
2)Young Dragon Ring
3)Crown of Dusk (careful wearing it when fighting enemies dealing lots of magic damage)
4)Scholar's Candlestick (dropped from Archives and u can get it from greyrat check wiki)
5)sage ring
6)magic clutch ring
7) court sorcerer staff (max it out pronto)
7) int=60

Having all this you should be fine. Against crystal sage you can effectively use pyromancies(vestiges, not chaos orb) if you equip +damage pyro rings and +fire clutch ring

To make it easier to clear levels of trash just use hidden body spell +slumbering ring+aldrich sapphire. or just hidden body and lingering ring.


GHSA one-two shots magic resistant mages in the Archives at ng+2 with
this

1) Bellowing Dragoncrest Ring
2)Young Dragon Ring
3)Crown of Dusk (careful wearing it when fighting enemies dealing lots of magic damage)
4)Scholar's Candlestick (dropped from Archives and u can get it from greyrat check wiki)
5)sage ring
6) magic clutch ring
7) court sorcerer staff (max it out pronto)
7) int=60

[Hunubul]

As others said magic is easy mode in PvE. There are many ways, not just one to obliterate everything with magic.
-One shot build, this focuses on highest possible damage, thus you can only use this against bosses really, everything else you melee down or run past it.
-SpammySpammy, this focuses on lower FP usage, thus you can kill anything until you get to the boss. But at the boss you don't stand a chance.
-Balanced, this means you have low damage low FP cost spells which you can clear areas with, and high damage spells which can help with bosses. Having a backup weapon is still advised, but this way you can use magic on almost everything.

One shot requires all damage increase items and high int, also high attunement because of high fp cost. Also you don't need to wear all those items when you don't use magic, so only equip them before the boss to obliterate it.
Spam build requires attunement only to have enough spells equipped, which is 2 or 3. You should stil lhave high int, but items you can swap out before bosses, because you won't really use magic on bosses. This can focus on havin pretty high melee damage or high survivability (only either).
Balanced requires the most skills. You need to balance which damageincrease items you will wear, because you can't have all if you want to survive and/or deal melee damage. You need high atutnement to have different spells so you can adapt, and you also need high int. That doesn't leave you much room to increase survivability or melee damage. But raw is your friend in this scenario, or int scaling melee weapons.

An alternative is buff-mage or melee-mage. You don't really need spells to deal magic damage. Moonlight greatsword or anything with weapon buff for example.


All builds I just mentioned are very good in PvE (and PvP too), but it may not suit you. There are options for you, one of it is not being a mage at all.

[Shhh]

Hidden body makes PvE a joke. And like they said A simple enchantment on offhand (shield or caestus) and you wont have any FP problems