Magic Weapon or Pale Pine Resin?

[Rosario]

I recently started a level 1 run and figured I could use the Magic Weapon sorcery with the deprived stats, but would I get more damage out of the sorcery or the resin? I know that magic isn't the BEST damage, but may as well use what's available, right? I also know Pale Resin doesn't really show up until fairly late in the game and I will likely be using magic weapon throughout most of the game regardless, but would still like to know.

[Alice]

Magic weapon is WAY better, ple pine resin is only 35 magic damage instead of the 90 the lightning and fire ones add, so yeah the spell and if you apply the scholar ring great magic weapon is better than resins.

[Vaeldara]

Plus weapon buffs scale with your stats so with great/crystal/magic weapon the higher your intellegence the more damage it will do.

[Rosario]

So at 10 Int (because level 1 run) Magic Weapon still outperforms pale? Had no clue pale was so bad, you'd think it would be better with how late it comes in, doesn't it first show up in Irythil Dungeon?

[Vaeldara]

Well none of the bosses are vunerable to magic damage so overall pale pine resin is pretty worthless since the others all offer better damage and allow you to exploit vunrabilities.

It really is a shame that no boss is weak to pure magic damage. A lot of bosses are weak to lightning or fire so it makes playing a pyromancer or a faith build better than playing a mage. At least that's how I see it.

[Vaeldara]

Originally posted by Dessembrae:

Originally posted by Vaeldara:

Well none of the bosses are vunerable to magic damage so overall pale pine resin is pretty worthless since the others all offer better damage and allow you to exploit vunrabilities.

It really is a shame that no boss is weak to pure magic damage. A lot of bosses are weak to lightning or fire so it makes playing a pyromancer or a faith build better than playing a mage. At least that's how I see it.

Yeah, it does seem odd. A boss like Gundyr, all metal armor, no magic based attacks, etc it seems like he should be weak to magic. But at least they have access to dark sorceries.

And even then only a handful of bosses are weak to dark.

All demons.
Vordt
Dancer
Friede.

Those are the only bosses weak to dark and vordt is also weak to fire and dancer is weak to lightning.

I have a mage character myself sitting at SL:240 so I have learned the pain of having none of my spells really deal bonus damage on bosses.

Hell even only a handful of basic enemies are weak to magic damage.

Why do this? Why implement magic damage but make almost nothing weak to it when almost everything is weak to fire or lightning.

Hell The "Hardest boss" Nameless king gets turned into a joke on my pyromancer. I use a lightning infused long sword for the phrase phase then throw a ton of fireballs at the king himself. I think on NG+5 it took 12 chaos bed vestiges to kill him with 60int/60faith. And that was all I hit him with and I didn't get hit once.

While on my mage character it took roughly 15-17 crystal soul spears on the same new game cycle.

[𝓡𝓮𝓽𝓻𝓸𝓒𝓪𝓽]

Originally posted by Vaeldara:

Originally posted by Dessembrae:

Yeah, it does seem odd. A boss like Gundyr, all metal armor, no magic based attacks, etc it seems like he should be weak to magic. But at least they have access to dark sorceries.

And even then only a handful of bosses are weak to dark.

All demons.
Vordt
Dancer
Friede.

Those are the only bosses weak to dark and vordt is also weak to fire and dancer is weak to lightning.

I have a mage character myself sitting at SL:240 so I have learned the pain of having none of my spells really deal bonus damage on bosses.

Hell even only a handful of basic enemies are weak to magic damage.

Why do this? Why implement magic damage but make almost nothing weak to it when almost everything is weak to fire or lightning.

Hell The "Hardest boss" Nameless king gets turned into a joke on my pyromancer. I use a lightning infused long sword for the phrase phase then throw a ton of fireballs at the king himself. I think on NG+5 it took 12 chaos bed vestiges to kill him with 60int/60faith. And that was all I hit him with and I didn't get hit once.

While on my mage character it took roughly 15-17 crystal soul spears on the same new game cycle.

Well, it's because it's been speculated that Miyazaki actually hates mages. In past Dark Souls games, magic was overpowered pure and simple. You could actually one-shot invaders with an optimized setup.

Perhaps this is Miyazaki's way of trying to discourage people from using magic. Meanwhile, the basic Longsword is just about the most well-rounded weapon in the entire game, and Pyromancies are all but busted. They're a lot more viable than Sorceries.

[Vaeldara]

You may not be wrong. With the proper set up mages can still one-shot invaders with great soul dregs. I've seen that spell hit for over 2k. You have to be a 10% HP glass canon build though to do that.

If he does hate magic or at least sorcerers then that would explain a bit.

[Xengre]

Good grief what is with all this misinformation here? To begin with OP is talking about a level 1 run...

Pale Pine Resin buffs AR by +90, not +35.

Magic Weapon needs spell buff of staff to be at 120 to even get +90 AR from it, which on a SL1 run char that might not even be upgrading stuff is going to be hard. If you are upgrading weapons then you may eventually find a catalyst that goes above 120 spell buff but it would still be worthless until it goes up above it enough to make up for the additional FP cost and management of it.

Anyways, Fire, Lightning, Dark are the best methods of dealing damage usually. Bleed and Frostbite (actually frostbite proc then strip with fire in other hand, similar to a bleed build used like this) are also useful on a few.

Far more than those bosses are weak to dark Vaeldara. Here is a list:
Vordt, Old Demon King, Dancer, Nameless King (1st phase is far weaker to lightning tho), Sister Friede (All Phases, Father as well), Soul of Cinder.

Early on fire is your only good option and fairly effective so use charcoal pine resin. On many normal mobs it can stun them, and several things are weak to it unlike magic.

Once you start being able to buy lightning pine resin/human use those most of the time (except rare cases like Aldrich). Usually a boss is weak to thunder once you can start buying those resins but some are weak to dark. Check the wikis if you aren't sure. I would recommend dark only on Old Demon and Dancer as they are exceptionally weak to it (would Vordt if you got the axe but no other source available that early), and also Nameless King as the alternative is fire which is a bit weaker there. Pretty much almost every other mob/boss is weak to lightning though from then on.

SpaceCat mages are OP in PvE in DS3 and would be potent in PvP if not for the fact of poor tracking and slow AF projectile speed making them trivial to dodge no matter how you use it in pvp.

Pyromancies start off strong early because stuff is weak to fire primarily initially. In addition, you get very early access to the good pyromancy spell Great Chaos Fire Orb (given way to flippin early for how good it is). You also only have a single catalyst so you begin with it effectively optimized for your build. Also, swamp early rings for pyro.

Still, it doesn't take long for sorcery to catch up and as you get around end game pyromancy doesn't even compare to the single target dmg. If we go for max lethality in pve, Great Soul Dregs pretty much invalidates every other option in the game to the point I wonder if devs were on something... A spell shouldn't be able to hit for 2-3k+ damage with a reasonably optimal build per cast on bosses.

Mages wont 1-shot anyone with Great Soul Dregs in pvp if they invested HP. Even my SL26 char will tank late game build casts from this, albeit barely because I am too low level to invest even further in HP and play naked. At 1.8k+ HP with a bit of armor, even more so with dark bug pellet, it just isn't going to be that deadly to take a hit. That is anywhere from 2-4 hits depending on HP investment, armor setup, and potential buffs. The only way anywhere near 2k in pvp would happen is if a calamity ring is involved or some other rings that boost damage taken.

Sorcery has a lot more utility magic and variety while pyromancies have a pretty solid Flash Sweat (very very strong buff against fire dmg even in pvp), Power Within, niche Iron Flesh, very niche Carthus Beacon, and the epic Rapport. Any others are so situation not worth listing tbh. Sorcery also dips into dark element and can double buff on dark sorcery from both dark & sorcery category like rings. Each category has its strengths and weaknesses in terms of spell usage.

[Rosario]

Definitely at least leveling my gear, I'm not THAT masochistic yet. Definitely still interesting seeing the discussion as it relates to the game in general as well though.

[Vaeldara]

I did not know that the soul of cinder and nameless king were weak to dark. My information about boss weaknesses came off the wiki where they don't list nameless king and soul of cinder as being weak to dark.

I suppose that's my mistake.

[Xengre]

Originally posted by Vaeldara:

I did not know that the soul of cinder and nameless king were weak to dark. My information about boss weaknesses came off the wiki where they don't list nameless king and soul of cinder as being weak to dark.

I suppose that's my mistake.

It will list it if you go to the boss' page, but the basic boss list which I am am sure you were looking at doesn't list all the weaknesses/resistances, sadly. Also the other wiki (example: http://darksouls3.wikidot.com/bosses:the-nameless-king ) gives more precise info about degree of resistance to it. (Ex. Nameless King Weak to Dark. approx. 26% absorption on NG+7, tested with 400 pure dark AR).

Now you know for future reference when you help others. :P
This is one of the reasons Darkhand is so disgustingly potent in a low level run for PvE. Almost everything is weak to dark and it has a high dmg value. Same for Dragonslayer Axe because almost everything is even weaker to lightning except in the few cases it isn't but is to dark. Both weapons suck pretty hardcore at pvp tho, heh.

Originally posted by Rosario:

Definitely at least leveling my gear, I'm not THAT masochistic yet. Definitely still interesting seeing the discussion as it relates to the game in general as well though.

In that case you shall be honestly saving yourself a lot of trouble. A SL1 run is basically like 10x easier than a high level run with +0 weapons, even more so than both conditions SL1 and +0. Drawn out fights due to low weapon dmg means far greater strain on healing resources, longer battles for more mistakes to occur, etc. With upgraded weapons most bosses can still be a 20 second affair so long as you are aggressive enough and use the right dmg types.

[Rosario]

The dragged out thing is the main reason I'm going ahead with weapon upgrading, even if I win first try on all bosses that way it'll still take a good long while, which I would enjoy for bosses like Soul of Cinder, but then there's bosses like Aldrich or, god forbid, Midir, that would just be a real drag (no pun intended).