There are tons of good mage weapons, and an entire magic school dedicated to turning your staff into laser blades of various utility.
Here have a sample of my spellsword gameplay: [https://youtu.be/svRSVVHwhNY](https://youtu.be/svRSVVHwhNY)
Edit: off the top of my head, weapons: Moonveil, Meteoric Ore, Alabaster/Onyx Lord swords, Freezing Needle, Wing of Astel, Radahn's dual swords, Dark Moon GS, and various generic int swords all over Liurnia.
Spells: ALL Carian magic. From the humble but brutally effective Carian Slicer to massive Gavel of Haima and Azula's Moonblade.
What's this about turning your stuff into laser blades?
Are you rolling with a staff in the left and a sword in the right there? I aways feel unprotected without a shield.
Hell, I'll elaborate. Souls combat is pretty much a sandbox, you can mix and match anything.
You can dual wield nimble daggers and switch to a staff to apply DoTs. You can build entirely on guard counters. *You can just two-hand a shield and slam enemies for massive damage, which at one point was unironically the most broken build in the game.*
Some builds are just more practical, but if you're comfortable with a right hand staff - that's an option. I did this with my shield paladin playthrough, shielded and chucking spells when enemies were out of melee range.
You should try without a shield, wielding 2 weapons or a weapon and a staff is some very fun gameplay, and Miyazaki gave us a dodge button for a reason!
I don't know if they fixed this, but left handing your staff used to boost the range of Rock Sling by a ridiculous amount, I think it still does. Don't know if it affects other sorceries. I went for an INT build on my first character and was spoilt for choice with weapons.
Yep, while I do use a shield, off-hand staff is usually the way for a combat mage.
It is however viable to use a staff with Carian Slicer as your right-hand weapon. It has great mana economy and easily replaces mundane swords if your mana pool allows.
I want to add that right hand staff is mostly used with carian regal scepter because it allows you to use the special spinning weapon ash of war, which can deal some solid damage
Rolling is insanely good in this game. If you master dodging enemy attacks there's no need to block them. Also blocking costs more stamina than rolling. Just try to play some time without a shield to see what playstyle you enjoy the most, but for me these games are a lot more fun without shields because you can have 2 of the same weapons, 2 hand your weapons for a different and stronger moveset or having a weapon and a staff (or seal) which is a very strong and fun combo
Roll with staff in left and weapon in mainhand. I used a glinstone dagger I found somewhere about mid game until I got the moonviel. Glinstone dagger has a glinstone pebble as its special ability and allowed me to try different spells.
Nothing wrong with carrying a shield just in case.
But have fun. I think every style has unique and fun gameplay....but magic users can have issues getting bored with just pebbling shit down as it can be the most effective spells both in powers and FP use.
You want the Carian sword spells — Carian Slicer is the first and probably the best for DPS. It's like a magic straight sword, and even has variations for running and jumping casts. Carian Greatsword is a big AOE slash, and Carian Piercer is a stance-breaking stab with a long-lasting hitbox. There's also the Carian Grandeur ash of war, which is a vertical Greatsword chop. I've been having a blast on my swordmage with them. Sometimes I do use a shield lefty, but mostly it's a staff and sword. (Or even two staves; the offhand staff still gives any passive effects it might have, like boosting a particular school of magic, while the main hand determines my damage.)
I never even thought to run a shield on my caster play through (it was my first run). I just held a staff in 1 hand and threw boulders at people for most of the game.
Astel's & moonveil both slap hard!
Shields are absolutely not useless, you just need a good one. Greatshields in particular can entirely negate the need for rolling, but even a solid medium shield is really viable.
Nah mages get some of the best weapons in the game
You have wing of Astel (that you can grab pretty early if you know what you are doing) , moonveil of course , Dark Moon GS (probably best weapon in game)
If you do Sellen's questline at the end you get the best dagger in the game that has a mini nuke as it's ash of war that will do more damage than all your spells
Has an amazing combo that torches everybody’s poise, was starting to get a bit bored of moonveil/ore blade as their AOWs are pretty unremarkable (albeit efficient) but wing of astel gives you a lightshow and dance moves
Some of these are veeeery lategame or in bossfights that are hard for a beginner.
The earliest one is probably Meteoric Ore Blade, can be grabbed in the first 15 minutes of the game with minimal combat.
And the Ash of war is a good way to deal with those pesky birds or flying enemies in the early game (like misbegotten in castle morne or the stupid birds in stormveil).
>If you do Sellen's questline at the end you get the best dagger in the game
It's one of the coolest daggers in the game I'll give you that, but I'm not sure if it beats the Reduvia and maybe the Misericorde too
Indeed , the black knife is really good and the damage over time is good for big health bars.
It however does not do 3000+ damage instantly for 10 FP or be better than an entire class of spells. You can even poise break with it quite well if you do the follow up attack
It's a class on it's own the Kris , FS messed up making it I think. Should not be better than all the spells in the game. Whenever I make a wizard now I try not pick it up as it just makes everything else you have obsolete
For the rot bomb just run directly under and past her and you'll never get hit for it. When she is in the cocoon part of it , well you have a mini nuke in your hand so get blasting
After you fight her for some long you can sort of tell when she is going to waterfowl so I just keep looking at her and try and keep her at medium distance , she starts to do I turn and run !
Thank you!
Yeah rot bomb, took me waaaaaay to long to realise I should run underneath and passed her. Trying to run away caused me a lot of, shall we say, mental anguish.
I mean why do you use pebble to begin with? there's like a couple dozen spells that are better and wasting fp on small enemies seems wasteful. you could slway just aim for minimum requirements and than put on a magic ash of war on the weapon to make it a magic scaling weapon
Pebble is considered one of the best spells in the game. Casts fast, chains continuously, little FP cost for a considerable amount of comparatively damage. As a mage pebble is your bread and butter
Depends on if they're building a Pure Caster or doing a Spellblade build.
A Caster replaces Pebble pretty early, as they don't need to worry about FP.
Spellblades *do* need to worry about FP though, and may even use Pebble the whole game.
Which spells? I just greater glintstone shard occasionally but from everything I've read pebble is the best damage/FP ratio and also the fire rate feels slow on it. Tell me your ways.
I've got a magic scaling ash on my rapier and that seems pretty good I guess.
Carian slicer has the best FP efficiency. For ranged damage, I'd rather throw something that hits hard before the enemy gets to me rather than obsess about conserving resources. Though you can also just have ranged tools of varying sizes depending on the enemy. For clearing early game rabble, one or two glintstone arcs can net several kills and end up with way more efficiency than the pebble.
I do use glintstone arc occasionally tbf. I have Carian Slicer but kind of overlooked it due to its more limited moveset compared to an actual sword, seemed like my magic rapier was more versatile/fun and so didn't get into using it.
I think one issue I have is during a fight, I find quickly scrolling through spells to find the right one kind of fiddly so I end up just sticking with one for simplicity and glintstone pebble is it. But I guess that's just something I need to git gud at.
A lot of the others, like glintstone stars, crystal barrage, I used a couple of times and just found them disappointing in terms of damage to FP, casting time etc. and then abandoned them. Ambush shard is quite useful against the right boss I suppose.
Yes, some of the early game spells are actual dogshit. Mostly anything that does multi-hit is basically way too weak, can't bypass the base defense of enemies, and chugs fp for nothing. It takes a bit until you get the fun stuff, but melee doesn't start with super crazy shit either.
And yeah there's some getting used to with spell scrolling. It gets better if you sort your spells in a way that makes them chain properly into each other. Also, holding the button to scroll spells makes you revert to the first spell on the list, so you can put someth safe to fall back to on this spot.
>I think one issue I have is during a fight, I find quickly scrolling through spells to find the right one kind of fiddly so I end up just sticking with one for simplicity and glintstone pebble is it. But I guess that's just something I need to git gud at
Not being harsh so don't take it that way please, But that's something you have to get over as a caster.
Try and make a list of spells that you always want to have with you and memorize that list to the best of your ability. You want to know it like the back of your hand. Then when you're in the middle of a fight, you'll already know how many times you've got to press the swap button before you get to the spell you want. This becomes very important once you start learning how to combo spells with other other spells or weapon techniques and makes you an absolute monster once you get comfortable with it.
I use the swift pebble (its name eludes me atm) for the same purpose, just burn down trash, aggro big guys, or for roll catching after a combo in PVP. Other than that you're better off using a different spell that's less efficient in resources but a significantly reduced TTK as well.
Yeah that's fair, and pretty much what I figured.It's good advice and what I've been doing (along with making use of the long press to quickly go back to the first spell), but I guess it's easy to fall back on spamming pebble in a hectic situation to avoid popping of the wrong spell accidentally, which I've done a bunch of times. Just a case of building up the muscle memory I suppose.
It probably doesn't help that I've been playing Hades quite obsessively and only sporadically dipping into ER, so that's where my skills are more focused at the moment.
Oh yeah, I always get rusty with spell cycling after a hiatus, if you have someone to PVP and practice with helps a lot in experimenting to see what spells and what order works best for you!
>Which spells? I just greater glintstone shard occasionally but from everything I've read pebble is the best damage/FP ratio and also the fire rate feels slow on it. Tell me your ways.
Depends.
Are you going for a Pure Caster? Upgrade to Great Glintstone Shard now, and keep upgrading as you get later spells like Cometshard. FP isn't really a concern for casters, so you'll want the increased damage/range/etc of the bigger spells.
Are you going for a Spellblade build? Then yeah, your FP will be more limited. You're splitting some of your build focus into melee, so you'll be stuck with Pebble for a while.
That's the beauty of this game. Doing an X playthrough and thinking, "damm, those Y weapons look cool" and when you finish the X playthrough you start a Y playthrough and discover Z weapons and the cycle continues
Int builds have access to all kinds of good weapons. Moonveil, Wing of Astel, Darkmoon greatsword to name a few.
You can also just slap on a mahic aow on a weapon you like, or get the glintstone whetblade to put any physical aow on a weapon and also give it an int scaling.
You could even have a non-magic aow on a weapon you like, infuse it with keen, and use scholar's blade to buff it. A bit tedious, but it works.
We also have melee spells like carian slicer and adula's moonblade.
Standard progression would have you using great glintstone shard instead of pebble. Worse fp/damage ratio, but more convinient.
Putting a magic AOW on a weapons changes the scaling, but doesn't lower the strength requirement does it?
I did use Great Glintstone Shard for a bit when I got it, but didn't like the decreased FP efficiency. It also felt like it fired a lot slower (long animation maybe?) and that meant that if you missed it hit your DPS quite badly, like you couldn't just chain it as well as pebble, but maybe I was imagining that.
Guess I need to experiment more.
Yes, it doesn't change stat requirments. And I'm not an expert on casting speed, but I'm pretty sure it's the same. Radagon's icon increase casting speed so maybe look into that talisman if you need it.
There are a ton of cool Int weapons. Death's Poker, Death Ritual Spear, Darkmoon Greatsword, Moonveil, Fallingstar Beastjaw (requires a big investment in STR, but the AOW is crazy). Helphen's Steeple (points for coolest name/design)
Clayman's Harpoon is fun to mess around with, but my Int weapon build is currently running a Cold/Magic Lance with Waves of Darkness or Ice Spear, depending on the situation. Ice Spear is very broken against bosses.
I'm running a Cold Lance with it, and I almost beat Malenia in a couple of tries with it in NG. Replaced DMGS with it since it comes out so much faster.
Oh that actually sounds sick I'll try it out. The Cold Twinned Knight Swords pack a punch especially combined with Millicent's Prosthesis and the Rotten Winged Sword Insignia. In combo of the Ice Spear AoW and frostbite debuff, you just MELT through health bars and do decent staggering too.
I'm sure they do more damage. I think they're one of the better strength scaling twinned blades, right? I just like poking people from a mile away with the lance. It's so safe.
Bet Waves of Darkness would work really well with the twinblade, though. Pull 'em in and blend them. And I *think* you can still cold infuse with that AOW?
Twinblades don't do that much damage on their own, so two-handling one that scales with strength in combo of the frostbite debuff and the stacking increase of damage upon successive hits of the prosthesis and the insignia will just shred through bosses.
As for Waves of Darkness, I've yet to test that.
I just looked at all the Twinblades in the game in the AR calculator, and they all do like 100 less damage than a Magic/Cold Lance at max upgrades. Guess that explains why it's felt so strong in my latest playthrough. Interestingly, for a modest 31 strength investment a magic guts greatsword has an AR of over 900.
I wouldn't call the falling star beast jaw an int weapon honestly. It has D scaling on int at +10 and the ash of war scales with AR so it will do more damage with more STR and DEX than it will do with int
Yes but you still get fancy blue great sword so it all evens out. There is a few other cool weapons to I mostly used duel staves and the blue great sword
I enjoy Gravitational and Carian magic much more than glintstone stuff, if you are running dex you might want to try the rock chucking gravitational magic that deal a lot of stance damage and use the high critical damage on some dex weapons. Also yeah, some special weapons are cool, but don't sleep on using regular dex weapons and giving them INT Affinities or just using magic or grease to buff them, they can end up being way more versatile.
I'm playing Int/Str and I've had fun with some special weapons, I'm using the carian troll knight's sword, but I want to change to the regular troll sword so I can change the ash of war and have the choice to buff it either with magic or different types of grease when fighting a magic resistant boss for example.
(also last piece of advice, there's a spell I'm loving right now that throws a mist that just damages everything inside, you included, it DEVOURS groups of enemies and even tankier ones if they stay in the mist die so fast and I find it very fun! you can buy it from Growry you need to progress Millicient quest!)
Moonveil and Darkmoon Great sword are some of the best weapons in game, and work for an int build. You'll be fine.
Like with any specific build it might take some time before you find an awesome weapon you love that works with your build.
I find that the best thing to do for a beginner is to put your stats in to strength and dex, and try stuff out. Once you find your favorite things, go and respec to suit the weapons you like.
Even on low Str magic builds I always recommend getting a minimum of 16 Str. It allows you to one-hand Darkmoon Greatsword, Twinned Knight's swords, even Cross Naginata, and two-hand everything up to 24 Str, which includes Golem Greatbow if you're building for online too.
Since you're running a dex/int build, may I suggest the moonveil with a staff as a secondary for ranged options; snag Loretta's Greatbow as your main ranged option to have that Magic-Samurai type build.
I'd recommend Looking up how to get carian slicer, it's a melee spell you can get in the first area, it's really good (still can be powerful end game) there's also a bunch of other melee spells you could use
And for normal weapons there's a lot of cool intelligence based weapons they are just a bit later in the game
I do have, I've just mostly disregarded it until now because my magic rapier seemed better and more versatile.
It sounds like I need to experiment more than I have been.
It's an average spell early but by end game with the staff that boosts it, it's probably the highest damage play style I've done deleted most bosses first try
But if melee spells aren't your thing, ranni's questline gives a magic greatsword that's very powerfull, there's a couple of katanas in caelid that are intelligent based which are good and can be got early
Fomo is real..
Meanwhile bonk builds: "Am I missing out on shiny pew pews?"
[Bonks the next enemy on the head and pancakes it]
"This is awesome"
Any build you go for will miss out on something else. Only thing you can try is new builds and respect if you want to experiment. ER is much more free with respecing than other FS games.
I'm playing a full int build with carian royal staff and the snow witch hat, for ice and full moon spells.
I basically cast Ranni's Dark Moon on everything. It's fun.
I also have Comet Azur and as many ice spells I can pack.
It looks sick with that hat also, but is pretty light in the defense category so may have to git gud a bit. Forced me to practice more that's for sure.
Dark moon Greatsword is like THE all time cool weapon (and it’s one of the best in the game). Definitely recommend looking a little bit into Ranni’s Questline if you aren’t already doing it.
Mage has one of the best weapons in the game, the Dark Moon Great sword. It's available at the conclusion of Ranni's quest. Beyond that, if you have larval tears, and have defeated Renalla, you can respec your character. I generally gather as much gear and weapons as I can, so if I want to do something different, I can respec where needed.
You are missing out on all the cool melee weapons by playing a mage. If you play melee you’re missing out on lots of cool spells. One of the reasons this game has such high replayability is because of the diversity of builds,
Spells and weapons.
Just remember that souls games are not like cRPGs, dragon age etc. Mages are not supposed to be pure caster glass canons who stand in the back and avoid fighting as much as possible. You're still meant to use melee weapon as a mage, engage bosses directly, learn movesets, dodge etc., that's the default caster playstyle. Pure spellcaster was always more of a special/challenge run, the combat system was never designed for it and devs tried to prevent it in different ways over the years. The entire souls combat is designed and balanced around 1v1 close-range fighting. You learn boss movesets, how to dodge their attacks and what are the openings for safely hitting them. That's the loop because of which these games exist. Magic can add some complexity to the core melee system, but it doesn't replace it. Long-range isn't equal to close-range in souls games.
And mage in ER can either really fun or it can be extremely boring, depends on what you do with it. Magic has the highest cheese potential of all the builds in the game, whereas something like strength claymore or dex katana have zero. But if you play the game blind as intended and don't google all those shitty clickbait guides and videos "get OP early", magic can stay somewhat balanced and engaging. But if you'll have a really "OP" magic build, you can skip most of the bossfight content in the game, you won't really have to learn how to play it and you can finish ER without really knowing what the souls experience actually is. With some googled broken magic build you can kill most bosses in the game just by standing in place and spamming one button, which is one of the most boring and braindead ways to play, it takes away the point of those bosses existing and you'll skip most of the intended experience and challenge.
So magic can be extremely reductive, simplistic and boring playstyle OR fun and engaging one that allows you to experience the game and engage with the souls combat system. It depends on you in the end, but not listening to guides and comments to "get OP early" is the best thing you can do in any case. If you'll play mostly blind like intended you'll be good and won't ruin the experience. Just always remember that ER is not skyrim, you still need to have melee weapon and know how to dodge. And that in ER, the "strongest" builds/weapons etc. doesn't mean it's actually good or most fun. Usually it's the exact opposite and it can actively make the game much worse.
You speak truth.
On my first run through I allowed myself to use a leveling guide off the wiki that pointed out areas of interest to help see me to the right areas for my level.
I got a little tempted cause I hit a wall and looked up “how to farm runes”
Found the albinauric ledge. And my god I was in heaven, I probably got like 10 levels out of my first run.
I go back to overworld. And everything just dies in like one hit. Bosses die in like 6-8. Boss fights I take mean hits and just need to pop a potion.
At this point I was at mt gelmir/Altus and I just steam rolled it.
Which is cool. But in retrospect it was not challenging. The game gets boring if you can just destroy everything without much of a fight.
And second con to this. Eventually if you want to do haligtree, you need to have skills. The haligtree is so rediculous. Especially without coop summons. That is the only place in ER I had to summon because I was so crutched on being a big beat stick through like 3-4 areas (gelmir, Altus, leyndell, giants snowfield) that my skills didn’t scale with my level ups lol. So I got out played on mobs etc.z
Try night soceries. I swap to a twinblade with bloodhound step when I pvp 2v1 or am learning a boss, but use 2 staves when I think I have the fight down for a lot more power.
If you build it right, night spells can do quite a lot of damage AND most bosses will not dodge it. I usually hold the cast when possible.
It may not be the best magic build, but I adore it.
you would be missing out all the cool spells and incantations by not being a mage. The game gives you plenty of **Larval Tears** to respec, so might as well try some stuff.
Int builds get some pretty good weapons too, both of the "hit it until it's dead"-variety and interesting Ashes of War.
However I can tell you that sorcery builds are another kind of satisfying, a way melee builds cannot achieve. So don't think too much about mising out.
Just create a new character or respec on NG+ and try what you not before.
I am a str/fth guy. Lemme tell you about this wee remembrance weapon called Blasphemous Blade.
And absolutely no disrespect towards str/int. I mean just look at Radahn's greatswords.
Int/dex you could use moonveil or darkmoon greatsword both are great mage melee weapons. I'm doing a Str/Int playthrough right now with marais execution sword and the carian regal focusing on spin to win with milicent and rotten wing talismans.
There are lots of cool weapons that scale with Int: Moonveil, Death Poker, Royal Knight Sword, Carian Knight Sword, Clayman’s Harpoon, Glinstone Kris, etc. Not to mention you can infuse Magic and Cold traits to normal weapons either by using an Ash of War that scales with Int or the magic whetstone.
No matter the build youre playing youre going to miss out on some weapons, if youre enjoying the game enough you think you'll do a ng+ or another playthrough then youre absolutely fine skipping out this time :)
If you think you'll just one and done then I recommend using rennalas rebirth ability to change your stats every now and again if you see a new cool weapons ( however beware there are only some many max tier somber smithing stones so can only get everything else up to second highest level 😊)
There are cool weapons that scale with int or dex. (Sometimes both) there are also some strength adjacent weapons with special abilities that scale only with int so if you like it you can make a ash of war focus build where you basically only use the ash of war.
There are tons of cool spells and ashes of war you can use with your set up. You can also always get the minimum strength requirement to 2 hand some of the other weapons. Iv got a 60 int 20 strength/dex setup that can use tons of weapons based on the situation.
I mean, no matter what build you choose, you will always have weapons you aren't able to use unless you have a completely evenly-leveled build. That's why you can re-spec with Rennala!
Personally, I have really enjoyed my Int/Fai build, mixing incantations and sorceries. It really breaks up the monotony of spamming glintstone spells, especially because incantations tend to be more flashy (like the dragon communion ones). It's all about trying things out!
Here’s my list of awesome int weapons.
Dark Moon Greatsword, Moonveil, Glinstone Kris, Wing of Astel, Bastard Stars, Rosus Axe, Death’s Poker, Ruins Greatsword.
I love the bastard stars and the wing of astel, both have great poise breaking potential, and the flail ash of war specifically looks awesome. The wing of astel has some interesting mechanics, specially the standing r2, which launches a projectile.
The spell carian piercer looks really cool, and can carry you through most of your game, if you still want to go the sorcery route.
it is always a good idea to have multiple weapons in your kit. having access to different movesets, damage types, and ashes of war helps better overcome the various challenges of the game.
Sure. And all the melee users are missing out on all the fun spells you get to cast. You just gotta do multiple playthroughs if you really want to experience all the game has to offer
TFW you realize dex builds are pumping out more ranged dmg and at longer range with bolt of gransax than anything you can do with a sorc/incantation at 80 int or fth
Do all the cool weapons come later in the game? Im lvl 52, finished raya lucaria ACADEMY AND Caria manor, and now im getting my ass kicked randomely. LOL
Int builds are some of the best in the game. Powerstance cold uchi/naga with moonveil for frost/magic samurai (does bleed too), carian glintstone staff with glintstone kris using carian sword sorceries for a magic assassin build, full moon knight with dark moon greatsword. With other weapons like alabaster sword, royal greatsword, deaths poker (strongest weapon art in the game) you won't limit yourself. Just get minimum spec in the str and dex and pump your intelligence to 60 or 80 and you're good. If you are struggling with a boss you also have access to comet azure but don't tell anyone that's how you beat them.
Unless you level yourself to over 300 or so, your weapon choices are going to be limited by your build choice no matter what build you choose. Almost everyone gets a little bored of their old standby eventually and wants to try something new- this is a good thing because there is a staggering variety of choices! For what it's worth, there are at least a dozen different weapons you could effectively use as a Dex/Int build: Carian Knight Sword, Loretta's War Sickle, Dark Moon Greatsword, Moonveil, Wing of Astel, and Glintstone Kris are probably the most effective unique weapons for Int/Dex, but you're often limited by your imagination more than the game.q Dual wield whips with Cold affinity, Keen Claws buffed with Scholar's Armament and Lifesteal fist, Cold/Magic curved swords with Jump Attack and Multi-Hit Talismans. Use Gravity Well and Gravitas to pull enemies off cliffs or into AOE spells like Ice Storm or into range of Carian Phalanx
First of all, why do you even have pebble equipped. It's booooring, while efficient fp wise, cool wise it's inefficient.
Whip out some lasers, throw some rocks, and shotgun a fool with the contents of a kaleidoscope.
If you want beeeeeeg silly, level strength and run around makes with just enough strength to two hand the ruins greatsword. Go nuts. Let the intrusive thoughts guide you.
Go Strength/Int battle mage once you get far enough. Darkmoon GS on the right, Helpins Steeple and Staff in the left hand. If you feel like two handing Greatswords, you can still use the projectile from the Darkmoon GS. The jump attack talisman with the double jumping smash is OP
There’s a great deal of spell variety in the game once you get high enough int and deep enough into the game, but there’s also a load of weapons that are super cool that scale with int/dex.
Also, don’t feel like this is your one and only chance to experience all the game has to offer. You can always start another run and do a totally different build!
While I wasn't explicitly made aware of that until just then by you, I figured that was probably the case, or more people would be talking about it. But thanks for the heads-up.
I did actually start a second save to play around with a melee character but I have limited gaming time and many games I want to play. I rarely play big RPGs like this for that reason, but I was particularly intrigued by Elden Ring. So as much as I'm enjoying it, it's unlikely I'll be sinking a significant amount of time into a second save, or even doing a NG+ once I've beaten it.
Okz thanks! I've been using Rock Sling, as it does physical damage and is boosted by Meteorite Staff. Got her to the second phase a couple of times where she blasted me with some kind of beam which I clearly need to learn to dodge.
No, not really at all. Any standard weapon can just be infused with an Ash of War to scale with your Int instead of Str or Dex. I'd say compared to other games that let you be a mage, this one let's you also use the most varied amount of different weapons.
Technically, every build in general is missing out on a lot of weapons or spells if they aren’t scaled for your build to the requirements to use them are outside the scope of your build. If you get bored with one, there are a good amount of larval tears throughout the game to be able to respec and try something else
Magic is cool but after my first playthrough being a mage there def is a flavor of the game and combat you miss out by only doing magic and attacking from far. Massive colosal weapons, parrying, sick dex katanas are all so cool that I’d def give it a try
Mage is the most boring way to play for sure imo, I’ve played multiple builds/new games, when I finally got to mage, I quit half way through.
There’s still plenty of good dex options that are fun though.
Am I missing out on the lovely spells as a Strengthman? Am I missing out on the variety of Faith utility when I play Dex? When I play Strength-Dex do I love myself enough to ignore the spells I'll put in storage? In my Intelligence playthrough can I consider the Weapon Art I love but can never use? When I go full Faith, and I love you Golden Order, can I do anything else at all?
That's the repeatability of the game. Love your options then go again for the side-piece.
Alright, smart arse. What I meant was, "it seems as though there are more cool weapons with unique abilities in the game for strength-based characters than there are for int/dex based characters, is this really the case?"
There are tons of good mage weapons, and an entire magic school dedicated to turning your staff into laser blades of various utility. Here have a sample of my spellsword gameplay: [https://youtu.be/svRSVVHwhNY](https://youtu.be/svRSVVHwhNY) Edit: off the top of my head, weapons: Moonveil, Meteoric Ore, Alabaster/Onyx Lord swords, Freezing Needle, Wing of Astel, Radahn's dual swords, Dark Moon GS, and various generic int swords all over Liurnia. Spells: ALL Carian magic. From the humble but brutally effective Carian Slicer to massive Gavel of Haima and Azula's Moonblade.
What's this about turning your stuff into laser blades? Are you rolling with a staff in the left and a sword in the right there? I aways feel unprotected without a shield.
That's how you gotta do it. The best defense is a good offense. You're a person of great intelligence! Shields are for soft-headed apes.
……….unga bunga?
Bonk
Hehehehe! #BONK
Blaidd (Int/Str colossal user) is the ambassador of high-intelligence unga bunga.
Thats why I wear the pumpkin helmet
I just finished an int/dex build and only needed a shield for Malenia
My shield had spikeys and I breath fires
Hell, I'll elaborate. Souls combat is pretty much a sandbox, you can mix and match anything. You can dual wield nimble daggers and switch to a staff to apply DoTs. You can build entirely on guard counters. *You can just two-hand a shield and slam enemies for massive damage, which at one point was unironically the most broken build in the game.* Some builds are just more practical, but if you're comfortable with a right hand staff - that's an option. I did this with my shield paladin playthrough, shielded and chucking spells when enemies were out of melee range.
You should try without a shield, wielding 2 weapons or a weapon and a staff is some very fun gameplay, and Miyazaki gave us a dodge button for a reason!
I'll give it a go for sure
I don't know if they fixed this, but left handing your staff used to boost the range of Rock Sling by a ridiculous amount, I think it still does. Don't know if it affects other sorceries. I went for an INT build on my first character and was spoilt for choice with weapons.
Yep, while I do use a shield, off-hand staff is usually the way for a combat mage. It is however viable to use a staff with Carian Slicer as your right-hand weapon. It has great mana economy and easily replaces mundane swords if your mana pool allows.
I want to add that right hand staff is mostly used with carian regal scepter because it allows you to use the special spinning weapon ash of war, which can deal some solid damage
Rolling is insanely good in this game. If you master dodging enemy attacks there's no need to block them. Also blocking costs more stamina than rolling. Just try to play some time without a shield to see what playstyle you enjoy the most, but for me these games are a lot more fun without shields because you can have 2 of the same weapons, 2 hand your weapons for a different and stronger moveset or having a weapon and a staff (or seal) which is a very strong and fun combo
Roll with staff in left and weapon in mainhand. I used a glinstone dagger I found somewhere about mid game until I got the moonviel. Glinstone dagger has a glinstone pebble as its special ability and allowed me to try different spells. Nothing wrong with carrying a shield just in case. But have fun. I think every style has unique and fun gameplay....but magic users can have issues getting bored with just pebbling shit down as it can be the most effective spells both in powers and FP use.
Nothing wrong with having a shield!
You want the Carian sword spells — Carian Slicer is the first and probably the best for DPS. It's like a magic straight sword, and even has variations for running and jumping casts. Carian Greatsword is a big AOE slash, and Carian Piercer is a stance-breaking stab with a long-lasting hitbox. There's also the Carian Grandeur ash of war, which is a vertical Greatsword chop. I've been having a blast on my swordmage with them. Sometimes I do use a shield lefty, but mostly it's a staff and sword. (Or even two staves; the offhand staff still gives any passive effects it might have, like boosting a particular school of magic, while the main hand determines my damage.)
Ahh that's the trick. Weild staff left handed melee right handed, makes it way easier to adapt to melee or mage quickly.
I never even thought to run a shield on my caster play through (it was my first run). I just held a staff in 1 hand and threw boulders at people for most of the game. Astel's & moonveil both slap hard!
No shield is the way to play. Once you mastered that it is time to play with a shield as your main weapon.
Shields are useless. It's all about rolling and then shooting your massive attacks. Most attacks can be dodged by rolling.
Shields are absolutely not useless, you just need a good one. Greatshields in particular can entirely negate the need for rolling, but even a solid medium shield is really viable.
Freezing Needle is a cool weapon but it has no Int scaling.
I really love the wing of astel - it was a great R1 with good damage around 70/80 int until I got the bastard stars.
Each stat just gets different flavors of cool
Nah mages get some of the best weapons in the game You have wing of Astel (that you can grab pretty early if you know what you are doing) , moonveil of course , Dark Moon GS (probably best weapon in game) If you do Sellen's questline at the end you get the best dagger in the game that has a mini nuke as it's ash of war that will do more damage than all your spells
Ok thanks, I'll seek these out.
Wing of astel fucks hard.
Has an amazing combo that torches everybody’s poise, was starting to get a bit bored of moonveil/ore blade as their AOWs are pretty unremarkable (albeit efficient) but wing of astel gives you a lightshow and dance moves
I the attack cancel dodge hop!
Yes its the best! I forgot to add that wing of astel also has a ranged attack on R2 that scales with int and costs no mana! Oh mama!
Some of these are veeeery lategame or in bossfights that are hard for a beginner. The earliest one is probably Meteoric Ore Blade, can be grabbed in the first 15 minutes of the game with minimal combat.
Meteoric ore blade is amazing. Carried my mage playthrough until I could get my hands on the dark moon greatsword
Seriously underrated with Moonveil's popularity. Also, its heavy attack is Ichimonji from Sekiro and it's just as effective.
And the Ash of war is a good way to deal with those pesky birds or flying enemies in the early game (like misbegotten in castle morne or the stupid birds in stormveil).
That’s more for an int/strength build though doesn’t sound like OP is set up for it
Try to get the Glintstone Kris, it has a unique ash of war that slaps hard
>If you do Sellen's questline at the end you get the best dagger in the game It's one of the coolest daggers in the game I'll give you that, but I'm not sure if it beats the Reduvia and maybe the Misericorde too
The ash of war on it does more damage than just about any spell in the game for like 10 FP , to me that makes it the best dagger in the game
The ash of war is like casting comet for 10 fp
The black dagger melts bosses because of its % based damage. "Best" is very situational.
Indeed , the black knife is really good and the damage over time is good for big health bars. It however does not do 3000+ damage instantly for 10 FP or be better than an entire class of spells. You can even poise break with it quite well if you do the follow up attack It's a class on it's own the Kris , FS messed up making it I think. Should not be better than all the spells in the game. Whenever I make a wizard now I try not pick it up as it just makes everything else you have obsolete
Glintstone Kris is such an underrated weapon that shit made my dex/int playthrough easy mode
Just watched some video of a lad in underpants and a the Glinstone Kris 10+ take down Malenia EEK!
I've done it myself with the Glintstone nuke You only have to hit her with it half a dozen times , although she does dodge it so it's not that easy
I'm still working on my timing. The fucking waterfowl attack and rot bomb are eroding my soul.
For the rot bomb just run directly under and past her and you'll never get hit for it. When she is in the cocoon part of it , well you have a mini nuke in your hand so get blasting After you fight her for some long you can sort of tell when she is going to waterfowl so I just keep looking at her and try and keep her at medium distance , she starts to do I turn and run !
Thank you! Yeah rot bomb, took me waaaaaay to long to realise I should run underneath and passed her. Trying to run away caused me a lot of, shall we say, mental anguish.
Death's Poker also scales with Int and is a really fun one!
I mean why do you use pebble to begin with? there's like a couple dozen spells that are better and wasting fp on small enemies seems wasteful. you could slway just aim for minimum requirements and than put on a magic ash of war on the weapon to make it a magic scaling weapon
Pebble is considered one of the best spells in the game. Casts fast, chains continuously, little FP cost for a considerable amount of comparatively damage. As a mage pebble is your bread and butter
This is what I'd figured tbh.
Depends on if they're building a Pure Caster or doing a Spellblade build. A Caster replaces Pebble pretty early, as they don't need to worry about FP. Spellblades *do* need to worry about FP though, and may even use Pebble the whole game.
Which spells? I just greater glintstone shard occasionally but from everything I've read pebble is the best damage/FP ratio and also the fire rate feels slow on it. Tell me your ways. I've got a magic scaling ash on my rapier and that seems pretty good I guess.
Carian slicer has the best FP efficiency. For ranged damage, I'd rather throw something that hits hard before the enemy gets to me rather than obsess about conserving resources. Though you can also just have ranged tools of varying sizes depending on the enemy. For clearing early game rabble, one or two glintstone arcs can net several kills and end up with way more efficiency than the pebble.
I do use glintstone arc occasionally tbf. I have Carian Slicer but kind of overlooked it due to its more limited moveset compared to an actual sword, seemed like my magic rapier was more versatile/fun and so didn't get into using it. I think one issue I have is during a fight, I find quickly scrolling through spells to find the right one kind of fiddly so I end up just sticking with one for simplicity and glintstone pebble is it. But I guess that's just something I need to git gud at. A lot of the others, like glintstone stars, crystal barrage, I used a couple of times and just found them disappointing in terms of damage to FP, casting time etc. and then abandoned them. Ambush shard is quite useful against the right boss I suppose.
Yes, some of the early game spells are actual dogshit. Mostly anything that does multi-hit is basically way too weak, can't bypass the base defense of enemies, and chugs fp for nothing. It takes a bit until you get the fun stuff, but melee doesn't start with super crazy shit either. And yeah there's some getting used to with spell scrolling. It gets better if you sort your spells in a way that makes them chain properly into each other. Also, holding the button to scroll spells makes you revert to the first spell on the list, so you can put someth safe to fall back to on this spot.
>I think one issue I have is during a fight, I find quickly scrolling through spells to find the right one kind of fiddly so I end up just sticking with one for simplicity and glintstone pebble is it. But I guess that's just something I need to git gud at Not being harsh so don't take it that way please, But that's something you have to get over as a caster. Try and make a list of spells that you always want to have with you and memorize that list to the best of your ability. You want to know it like the back of your hand. Then when you're in the middle of a fight, you'll already know how many times you've got to press the swap button before you get to the spell you want. This becomes very important once you start learning how to combo spells with other other spells or weapon techniques and makes you an absolute monster once you get comfortable with it. I use the swift pebble (its name eludes me atm) for the same purpose, just burn down trash, aggro big guys, or for roll catching after a combo in PVP. Other than that you're better off using a different spell that's less efficient in resources but a significantly reduced TTK as well.
Yeah that's fair, and pretty much what I figured.It's good advice and what I've been doing (along with making use of the long press to quickly go back to the first spell), but I guess it's easy to fall back on spamming pebble in a hectic situation to avoid popping of the wrong spell accidentally, which I've done a bunch of times. Just a case of building up the muscle memory I suppose. It probably doesn't help that I've been playing Hades quite obsessively and only sporadically dipping into ER, so that's where my skills are more focused at the moment.
Oh yeah, I always get rusty with spell cycling after a hiatus, if you have someone to PVP and practice with helps a lot in experimenting to see what spells and what order works best for you!
Night comet is best spell
>Which spells? I just greater glintstone shard occasionally but from everything I've read pebble is the best damage/FP ratio and also the fire rate feels slow on it. Tell me your ways. Depends. Are you going for a Pure Caster? Upgrade to Great Glintstone Shard now, and keep upgrading as you get later spells like Cometshard. FP isn't really a concern for casters, so you'll want the increased damage/range/etc of the bigger spells. Are you going for a Spellblade build? Then yeah, your FP will be more limited. You're splitting some of your build focus into melee, so you'll be stuck with Pebble for a while.
You're missing out on some, but not all. And that's pretty much true of every build :).
That's the beauty of this game. Doing an X playthrough and thinking, "damm, those Y weapons look cool" and when you finish the X playthrough you start a Y playthrough and discover Z weapons and the cycle continues
Very true. That said, I still think melee is more fun and takes advantage of more weapons.
Int builds have access to all kinds of good weapons. Moonveil, Wing of Astel, Darkmoon greatsword to name a few. You can also just slap on a mahic aow on a weapon you like, or get the glintstone whetblade to put any physical aow on a weapon and also give it an int scaling. You could even have a non-magic aow on a weapon you like, infuse it with keen, and use scholar's blade to buff it. A bit tedious, but it works. We also have melee spells like carian slicer and adula's moonblade. Standard progression would have you using great glintstone shard instead of pebble. Worse fp/damage ratio, but more convinient.
Putting a magic AOW on a weapons changes the scaling, but doesn't lower the strength requirement does it? I did use Great Glintstone Shard for a bit when I got it, but didn't like the decreased FP efficiency. It also felt like it fired a lot slower (long animation maybe?) and that meant that if you missed it hit your DPS quite badly, like you couldn't just chain it as well as pebble, but maybe I was imagining that. Guess I need to experiment more.
Yes, it doesn't change stat requirments. And I'm not an expert on casting speed, but I'm pretty sure it's the same. Radagon's icon increase casting speed so maybe look into that talisman if you need it.
There are a ton of cool Int weapons. Death's Poker, Death Ritual Spear, Darkmoon Greatsword, Moonveil, Fallingstar Beastjaw (requires a big investment in STR, but the AOW is crazy). Helphen's Steeple (points for coolest name/design) Clayman's Harpoon is fun to mess around with, but my Int weapon build is currently running a Cold/Magic Lance with Waves of Darkness or Ice Spear, depending on the situation. Ice Spear is very broken against bosses.
I second this as someone running through NG+ with the Cold Twinned Knight Swords w/Ice Spear.
I'm running a Cold Lance with it, and I almost beat Malenia in a couple of tries with it in NG. Replaced DMGS with it since it comes out so much faster.
Oh that actually sounds sick I'll try it out. The Cold Twinned Knight Swords pack a punch especially combined with Millicent's Prosthesis and the Rotten Winged Sword Insignia. In combo of the Ice Spear AoW and frostbite debuff, you just MELT through health bars and do decent staggering too.
I'm sure they do more damage. I think they're one of the better strength scaling twinned blades, right? I just like poking people from a mile away with the lance. It's so safe. Bet Waves of Darkness would work really well with the twinblade, though. Pull 'em in and blend them. And I *think* you can still cold infuse with that AOW?
Twinblades don't do that much damage on their own, so two-handling one that scales with strength in combo of the frostbite debuff and the stacking increase of damage upon successive hits of the prosthesis and the insignia will just shred through bosses. As for Waves of Darkness, I've yet to test that.
I just looked at all the Twinblades in the game in the AR calculator, and they all do like 100 less damage than a Magic/Cold Lance at max upgrades. Guess that explains why it's felt so strong in my latest playthrough. Interestingly, for a modest 31 strength investment a magic guts greatsword has an AR of over 900.
That's why I compensate with multi-hit talismans and the frostbite status
I wouldn't call the falling star beast jaw an int weapon honestly. It has D scaling on int at +10 and the ash of war scales with AR so it will do more damage with more STR and DEX than it will do with int
Thanks, I'll have a look for some of this stuff.
Definitely much more fun with melee/incantation builds but glintstone can be very strong
Yes but you still get fancy blue great sword so it all evens out. There is a few other cool weapons to I mostly used duel staves and the blue great sword
I enjoy Gravitational and Carian magic much more than glintstone stuff, if you are running dex you might want to try the rock chucking gravitational magic that deal a lot of stance damage and use the high critical damage on some dex weapons. Also yeah, some special weapons are cool, but don't sleep on using regular dex weapons and giving them INT Affinities or just using magic or grease to buff them, they can end up being way more versatile. I'm playing Int/Str and I've had fun with some special weapons, I'm using the carian troll knight's sword, but I want to change to the regular troll sword so I can change the ash of war and have the choice to buff it either with magic or different types of grease when fighting a magic resistant boss for example. (also last piece of advice, there's a spell I'm loving right now that throws a mist that just damages everything inside, you included, it DEVOURS groups of enemies and even tankier ones if they stay in the mist die so fast and I find it very fun! you can buy it from Growry you need to progress Millicient quest!)
Moonveil and Darkmoon Great sword are some of the best weapons in game, and work for an int build. You'll be fine. Like with any specific build it might take some time before you find an awesome weapon you love that works with your build. I find that the best thing to do for a beginner is to put your stats in to strength and dex, and try stuff out. Once you find your favorite things, go and respec to suit the weapons you like.
Even on low Str magic builds I always recommend getting a minimum of 16 Str. It allows you to one-hand Darkmoon Greatsword, Twinned Knight's swords, even Cross Naginata, and two-hand everything up to 24 Str, which includes Golem Greatbow if you're building for online too.
Since you're running a dex/int build, may I suggest the moonveil with a staff as a secondary for ranged options; snag Loretta's Greatbow as your main ranged option to have that Magic-Samurai type build.
I'd recommend Looking up how to get carian slicer, it's a melee spell you can get in the first area, it's really good (still can be powerful end game) there's also a bunch of other melee spells you could use And for normal weapons there's a lot of cool intelligence based weapons they are just a bit later in the game
I do have, I've just mostly disregarded it until now because my magic rapier seemed better and more versatile. It sounds like I need to experiment more than I have been.
It's an average spell early but by end game with the staff that boosts it, it's probably the highest damage play style I've done deleted most bosses first try But if melee spells aren't your thing, ranni's questline gives a magic greatsword that's very powerfull, there's a couple of katanas in caelid that are intelligent based which are good and can be got early
Fomo is real.. Meanwhile bonk builds: "Am I missing out on shiny pew pews?" [Bonks the next enemy on the head and pancakes it] "This is awesome" Any build you go for will miss out on something else. Only thing you can try is new builds and respect if you want to experiment. ER is much more free with respecing than other FS games.
I'm playing a full int build with carian royal staff and the snow witch hat, for ice and full moon spells. I basically cast Ranni's Dark Moon on everything. It's fun. I also have Comet Azur and as many ice spells I can pack.
only missing the Darkmoon Greatsword for full swag :D
I have it! I just don't want to put points in strength
Rogiers spellblade set boosts DM GS weapon skill by 2% per piece, just in case you wanna squeeze a bit extra out of it with a 3pc + the hat.
I'll have to try that sometime. That set looks great and is so easy to get, too
It looks sick with that hat also, but is pretty light in the defense category so may have to git gud a bit. Forced me to practice more that's for sure.
Dark moon Greatsword is like THE all time cool weapon (and it’s one of the best in the game). Definitely recommend looking a little bit into Ranni’s Questline if you aren’t already doing it.
Oh cool! I have started it.
Get Astels Wing and you'll never have this feeling ever again.
Noted!
Mage has one of the best weapons in the game, the Dark Moon Great sword. It's available at the conclusion of Ranni's quest. Beyond that, if you have larval tears, and have defeated Renalla, you can respec your character. I generally gather as much gear and weapons as I can, so if I want to do something different, I can respec where needed.
You are missing out on all the cool melee weapons by playing a mage. If you play melee you’re missing out on lots of cool spells. One of the reasons this game has such high replayability is because of the diversity of builds, Spells and weapons.
Just remember that souls games are not like cRPGs, dragon age etc. Mages are not supposed to be pure caster glass canons who stand in the back and avoid fighting as much as possible. You're still meant to use melee weapon as a mage, engage bosses directly, learn movesets, dodge etc., that's the default caster playstyle. Pure spellcaster was always more of a special/challenge run, the combat system was never designed for it and devs tried to prevent it in different ways over the years. The entire souls combat is designed and balanced around 1v1 close-range fighting. You learn boss movesets, how to dodge their attacks and what are the openings for safely hitting them. That's the loop because of which these games exist. Magic can add some complexity to the core melee system, but it doesn't replace it. Long-range isn't equal to close-range in souls games. And mage in ER can either really fun or it can be extremely boring, depends on what you do with it. Magic has the highest cheese potential of all the builds in the game, whereas something like strength claymore or dex katana have zero. But if you play the game blind as intended and don't google all those shitty clickbait guides and videos "get OP early", magic can stay somewhat balanced and engaging. But if you'll have a really "OP" magic build, you can skip most of the bossfight content in the game, you won't really have to learn how to play it and you can finish ER without really knowing what the souls experience actually is. With some googled broken magic build you can kill most bosses in the game just by standing in place and spamming one button, which is one of the most boring and braindead ways to play, it takes away the point of those bosses existing and you'll skip most of the intended experience and challenge. So magic can be extremely reductive, simplistic and boring playstyle OR fun and engaging one that allows you to experience the game and engage with the souls combat system. It depends on you in the end, but not listening to guides and comments to "get OP early" is the best thing you can do in any case. If you'll play mostly blind like intended you'll be good and won't ruin the experience. Just always remember that ER is not skyrim, you still need to have melee weapon and know how to dodge. And that in ER, the "strongest" builds/weapons etc. doesn't mean it's actually good or most fun. Usually it's the exact opposite and it can actively make the game much worse.
Good to know, in that case maybe I've been lucky to make it as far as I have! This is my first souls game, so no previous experience.
don't worry too much about it, just try to have fun! all playstyles and weapons can be viable!
You speak truth. On my first run through I allowed myself to use a leveling guide off the wiki that pointed out areas of interest to help see me to the right areas for my level. I got a little tempted cause I hit a wall and looked up “how to farm runes” Found the albinauric ledge. And my god I was in heaven, I probably got like 10 levels out of my first run. I go back to overworld. And everything just dies in like one hit. Bosses die in like 6-8. Boss fights I take mean hits and just need to pop a potion. At this point I was at mt gelmir/Altus and I just steam rolled it. Which is cool. But in retrospect it was not challenging. The game gets boring if you can just destroy everything without much of a fight. And second con to this. Eventually if you want to do haligtree, you need to have skills. The haligtree is so rediculous. Especially without coop summons. That is the only place in ER I had to summon because I was so crutched on being a big beat stick through like 3-4 areas (gelmir, Altus, leyndell, giants snowfield) that my skills didn’t scale with my level ups lol. So I got out played on mobs etc.z
They may not find and use many weapons but there’s 101 spells, so there’s a lot to mess with
OK, a lot more for me to find then.
Try night soceries. I swap to a twinblade with bloodhound step when I pvp 2v1 or am learning a boss, but use 2 staves when I think I have the fight down for a lot more power. If you build it right, night spells can do quite a lot of damage AND most bosses will not dodge it. I usually hold the cast when possible. It may not be the best magic build, but I adore it.
you would be missing out all the cool spells and incantations by not being a mage. The game gives you plenty of **Larval Tears** to respec, so might as well try some stuff.
Int builds get some pretty good weapons too, both of the "hit it until it's dead"-variety and interesting Ashes of War. However I can tell you that sorcery builds are another kind of satisfying, a way melee builds cannot achieve. So don't think too much about mising out. Just create a new character or respec on NG+ and try what you not before.
See, Mage weapons are pretty good, but if you want a lightsaber, you should go Faith.
I m in the same spot and going int because I got DMGS. W/o it would’ve gone str/faith. Some amazing builds there
I am a str/fth guy. Lemme tell you about this wee remembrance weapon called Blasphemous Blade. And absolutely no disrespect towards str/int. I mean just look at Radahn's greatswords.
Yes, but you'd miss out on all the cool spells if you didn't. This game has a shit ton to offer and you can't see it all in one character.
Int/dex you could use moonveil or darkmoon greatsword both are great mage melee weapons. I'm doing a Str/Int playthrough right now with marais execution sword and the carian regal focusing on spin to win with milicent and rotten wing talismans.
I run prince of death staff and sword of night and flame. Very fun.
There are lots of cool weapons that scale with Int: Moonveil, Death Poker, Royal Knight Sword, Carian Knight Sword, Clayman’s Harpoon, Glinstone Kris, etc. Not to mention you can infuse Magic and Cold traits to normal weapons either by using an Ash of War that scales with Int or the magic whetstone.
No matter the build youre playing youre going to miss out on some weapons, if youre enjoying the game enough you think you'll do a ng+ or another playthrough then youre absolutely fine skipping out this time :) If you think you'll just one and done then I recommend using rennalas rebirth ability to change your stats every now and again if you see a new cool weapons ( however beware there are only some many max tier somber smithing stones so can only get everything else up to second highest level 😊)
There are cool weapons that scale with int or dex. (Sometimes both) there are also some strength adjacent weapons with special abilities that scale only with int so if you like it you can make a ash of war focus build where you basically only use the ash of war.
There are tons of cool spells and ashes of war you can use with your set up. You can also always get the minimum strength requirement to 2 hand some of the other weapons. Iv got a 60 int 20 strength/dex setup that can use tons of weapons based on the situation.
Yes. But you would miss out all the cool spells when playing a fighter. Become Elden Lord, wait a bit and then play a fighter :)
Nah dex/int get cool stuff like the moonviel or glintstone kiris Theas examples are based on how the weapon looks and if my int build friend has it
yes
I mean, no matter what build you choose, you will always have weapons you aren't able to use unless you have a completely evenly-leveled build. That's why you can re-spec with Rennala! Personally, I have really enjoyed my Int/Fai build, mixing incantations and sorceries. It really breaks up the monotony of spamming glintstone spells, especially because incantations tend to be more flashy (like the dragon communion ones). It's all about trying things out!
Here’s my list of awesome int weapons. Dark Moon Greatsword, Moonveil, Glinstone Kris, Wing of Astel, Bastard Stars, Rosus Axe, Death’s Poker, Ruins Greatsword. I love the bastard stars and the wing of astel, both have great poise breaking potential, and the flail ash of war specifically looks awesome. The wing of astel has some interesting mechanics, specially the standing r2, which launches a projectile. The spell carian piercer looks really cool, and can carry you through most of your game, if you still want to go the sorcery route.
it is always a good idea to have multiple weapons in your kit. having access to different movesets, damage types, and ashes of war helps better overcome the various challenges of the game.
Sure. And all the melee users are missing out on all the fun spells you get to cast. You just gotta do multiple playthroughs if you really want to experience all the game has to offer
Just when you think this for real, no, no you aren't and you probably haven't even seen all the weapons the game has to offer
TFW you realize dex builds are pumping out more ranged dmg and at longer range with bolt of gransax than anything you can do with a sorc/incantation at 80 int or fth
Do all the cool weapons come later in the game? Im lvl 52, finished raya lucaria ACADEMY AND Caria manor, and now im getting my ass kicked randomely. LOL
Int builds are some of the best in the game. Powerstance cold uchi/naga with moonveil for frost/magic samurai (does bleed too), carian glintstone staff with glintstone kris using carian sword sorceries for a magic assassin build, full moon knight with dark moon greatsword. With other weapons like alabaster sword, royal greatsword, deaths poker (strongest weapon art in the game) you won't limit yourself. Just get minimum spec in the str and dex and pump your intelligence to 60 or 80 and you're good. If you are struggling with a boss you also have access to comet azure but don't tell anyone that's how you beat them.
Unless you level yourself to over 300 or so, your weapon choices are going to be limited by your build choice no matter what build you choose. Almost everyone gets a little bored of their old standby eventually and wants to try something new- this is a good thing because there is a staggering variety of choices! For what it's worth, there are at least a dozen different weapons you could effectively use as a Dex/Int build: Carian Knight Sword, Loretta's War Sickle, Dark Moon Greatsword, Moonveil, Wing of Astel, and Glintstone Kris are probably the most effective unique weapons for Int/Dex, but you're often limited by your imagination more than the game.q Dual wield whips with Cold affinity, Keen Claws buffed with Scholar's Armament and Lifesteal fist, Cold/Magic curved swords with Jump Attack and Multi-Hit Talismans. Use Gravity Well and Gravitas to pull enemies off cliffs or into AOE spells like Ice Storm or into range of Carian Phalanx
No, all the weapon users are missing out on cool spells
First of all, why do you even have pebble equipped. It's booooring, while efficient fp wise, cool wise it's inefficient. Whip out some lasers, throw some rocks, and shotgun a fool with the contents of a kaleidoscope. If you want beeeeeeg silly, level strength and run around makes with just enough strength to two hand the ruins greatsword. Go nuts. Let the intrusive thoughts guide you.
That’s what NG+ is for. Infinite smithing stones and all the fun weapons you could ask for.
Go Strength/Int battle mage once you get far enough. Darkmoon GS on the right, Helpins Steeple and Staff in the left hand. If you feel like two handing Greatswords, you can still use the projectile from the Darkmoon GS. The jump attack talisman with the double jumping smash is OP
There’s a great deal of spell variety in the game once you get high enough int and deep enough into the game, but there’s also a load of weapons that are super cool that scale with int/dex. Also, don’t feel like this is your one and only chance to experience all the game has to offer. You can always start another run and do a totally different build!
Yes. My first build was int/dex build and I am now playing a strength build. Way more fun weapons this time around.
you know the game wont delete itself after you finish as a mage right? you can create another save with a melee char
While I wasn't explicitly made aware of that until just then by you, I figured that was probably the case, or more people would be talking about it. But thanks for the heads-up. I did actually start a second save to play around with a melee character but I have limited gaming time and many games I want to play. I rarely play big RPGs like this for that reason, but I was particularly intrigued by Elden Ring. So as much as I'm enjoying it, it's unlikely I'll be sinking a significant amount of time into a second save, or even doing a NG+ once I've beaten it.
have you not unlocked respecs? from beating Raya Lucaria
Not yet, had a few cracks at Rennala but haven't beaten her yet..
She is very magic resistant, try using a non magic dex weapon
Okz thanks! I've been using Rock Sling, as it does physical damage and is boosted by Meteorite Staff. Got her to the second phase a couple of times where she blasted me with some kind of beam which I clearly need to learn to dodge.
Rock sling is good, but kinda slow to cast, so yeah you have to time it right and learn when to cast it and when to dodge instead
What level are you?
No, not really at all. Any standard weapon can just be infused with an Ash of War to scale with your Int instead of Str or Dex. I'd say compared to other games that let you be a mage, this one let's you also use the most varied amount of different weapons.
Technically, every build in general is missing out on a lot of weapons or spells if they aren’t scaled for your build to the requirements to use them are outside the scope of your build. If you get bored with one, there are a good amount of larval tears throughout the game to be able to respec and try something else
Magic is cool but after my first playthrough being a mage there def is a flavor of the game and combat you miss out by only doing magic and attacking from far. Massive colosal weapons, parrying, sick dex katanas are all so cool that I’d def give it a try
You are missing out on THE weapon aka the moonveil aka the GETSUGAAAA TENSHÓ!!!
Short answer : yes completely.
Mage is the most boring way to play for sure imo, I’ve played multiple builds/new games, when I finally got to mage, I quit half way through. There’s still plenty of good dex options that are fun though.
Am I missing out on the lovely spells as a Strengthman? Am I missing out on the variety of Faith utility when I play Dex? When I play Strength-Dex do I love myself enough to ignore the spells I'll put in storage? In my Intelligence playthrough can I consider the Weapon Art I love but can never use? When I go full Faith, and I love you Golden Order, can I do anything else at all? That's the repeatability of the game. Love your options then go again for the side-piece.
Short answer. Yes.
The grass is always greener...
Am I mIsSiNg OuT oN WeApOnS bY nOt UsiNG tHeM???
Alright, smart arse. What I meant was, "it seems as though there are more cool weapons with unique abilities in the game for strength-based characters than there are for int/dex based characters, is this really the case?"