Do you believe in magic? Well, I have a character at like... 138 and another at 120. On my 120... if I decided to buff my moonlight dubstep sword with CMW... it would rip through people like butter. I've experienced wrath of gods a few times and it 1-shots both of my characters with 35/40 vigor. Great Resonant Soul does well over 1k damage in most cases, and many other hexes absolutely destroy people if they get caught offguard.Originally Posted by Pete for President
Magic right now is ABSURDLY power, but there are distinct counters. My counter for CMW MLGS builds is a little shield called the magic shield. It requires next to nothing to equip, and if it is infused with magic it acquires 100% magic damage blocking. This renders the builds quite a lot less scary, and many of the mages I've faced tend to get a bit confused when they're death beams do nothing to me. The rebel shield is another alternative that can have 100% in any element depending on what you infuse it with, and it has more stability as well at the cost of a far higher strength requirement.
And also, magic in general is still really easy to read and dodge. It becomes terrifying when lag is involved, but thats no different from it in DkS1. You really just have to get up in the mages face and bait out the magics. Many mages are actually garbage at pvp and they panic once you just roll through all of their stuff. So really, for mages, stay super aggressive and never let your guard down... and if you arent confident in your baiting/reading/dodging abilities... it really cannot hurt to pick up one of the two shields mentioned earlier.
That's really the basics of dealing with mages. I was one myself for a little while so I primarily analyzed the things that worked and didnt work in different environments. Mages are easily neutered in a proper duel environment, but in an invasion setting they can truly be a nightmare to face. Hell, even in a dueling environment they're terrifying. If you get hit by a CMW dubstep sword you'll know what I mean. I'm improving at fighting them, but getting 1-2shot results in any mistake I make ending in my doom. As time goes on though magic should become less and less of an issue.
The real issue is buff builds/the crappiness that is quality/non-buff builds. Scaling means extremely little from what I've seen, and even with my MLGS it's simply been better for me to lower my int down to the point where I can use my favorite sorceries and invest the points elsewhere. My quality build is utter garbage right now, and I really need to tinker with his stats to make him not horrible (By tinker, I mean find my main weapon... get base stats for it... and put the rest in other stats). Going down elemental paths is just the best way to go right now, and if you can use a buff... use it. Resins at least are really good now, so if you lack the stats/spices to use a buff you can just use those.
But yeah, you're sadly gimping yourself by not buffing right now. It's really a shame as I've always been a fan of not buffing my equipment.
I will go more in depth later, but I really need to sleep. Hopefully this was decently helpful though.
NG+ successes and woes
Beat the ruined sentinels in like... 3 tries. The NPC phantom has a tendency to go rambo and get himself killed, so I had to pump as much damage into the 2 sentinel gonkers as I could before my magebro died. After that it was all about taking it nice and slow, this fight is so much easier for me on NG+.
Beat the gargoyles, no summons no nothing. Hell, I beat them first try with like half of my spells/estus left just to try and see how tough they were NG+. They were terrifying actually, but I screamed and panicked my way to victory. As much flack as this weapon gets, the MLGS is just a glorious weapon. Being able to safely back away and shoot dubstep waves made that fight so much less insane and allowed me to maintain a safe distance while still doing some solid damage. Covetous gold ring +2 get.
So, about that lost sinner in NG+
This will be SO FUN TO SOLO. /sarcasm
The pyros that come in to backup the sinner deal insane amounts of damage, and since I murdered lucatiel in cold blood for her sweet-ass armor (NO REGRETS) I have no NPC phantom to keep aggro off me. Oh boy, this will be interesting to beat. Might put it off till after I beat the old iron king and have some new weapons upgraded to try out new strats.
So, as with everything I decided to co-op and learn how the fight goes. I also took this as an opportunity to try a new strat based around proper tanking.
Protip for co-oping that fight:
If you're the phantom and arent an absurdly heavy hitter you should do two things.
>Get the red-eye ring. (From shalquoir, this ring makes enemies prioritize you as the main target)
>Two-hand a 100% physical shield. (Two-handing it allows for more stability, probably not necessary if you have a greatshield)
I've been doing this and oh my god. This has allowed me to safely kite the sinner around the room while the host and other phantom deal with the pyros. It's not full-proof as you can attract the aggro of the pyros and they hurt... but it gives your two allies some insanely nice breathing room and allows for the two other guys to get some really easy hits on the boss once the pyro's are gone. I highly recommend this for a ton of bosses actually, it's a really cool and fun strategy.
But yeah, beating the sinner myself will be interesting. Might try a rapier or a spear to allow for some safe pokey damage that doesnt leave me super open. Hrmmmm.... It's all about killing the pyros without getting killed myself. This will be tricky.
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