SL 135 Burly-Mage

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Build summary	Melee-focused class with spells as back-up.
Recommended starting class(es)	Priest
Recommended Soul Level
	Recommended stats (Leave at default (**) if not raised)
Vitality	30
Will/Intelligence	40
Endurance	40
Strength	33
Dexterity	**
Magic	40
Faith	16
Luck	**
Recommended equipment	RH1: Strength weapon of choice (See below) RH2: Talisman or Kris Blade LH1: Insanity Catalyst LH2: Shield of choice, off-hand Moon Katana, or parrying device. If you have the Kris Blade in RH2, Talisman goes here. Armor: Monk's Headwrap is recommended. Other than that, anything that looks nice and allows you to roll. Rings: Cling Ring and Friend/Foe for Blue/Black. Cling Ring and Friend/Foe for body-form PvP. Dull Rat's/Magical Sharpness for Bodyform PvE. Cling Ring/Dull Rat's for Soulform PvE.
Recommended spells/miracles	Second Chance Any combination of the following: Light Weapon (2 slots) Fireball (2 slots) Ignite (2 slots) Firespray (1 slot) Soul Ray (1 slot) Homing Soul Arrow (2 slots) Firestorm (3 slots) Warding (2 slots)
Gameplay tips and progression	WEAPON CHOICE: There are some differences between this and a typical strength build to consider when choosing your weapon. For starters, you are not using Curse Weapon. It uses up too many spell slots for this build, and with 40 magic you will cast it at full strength, draining your health very quickly. The second is that you have less health and deal less damage than a typical strength build. This cripples your ability to trade blows. The third major difference is that the difference in damage between one-handing and two-handing your weapon is much greater. Here's a quick run-down: Knight Sword: A good choice. The Light Weapon helps out a lot on its lower attack rating. Stunlock still ends anything under the sun, and the one-handed moveset is good. Claymore: Another good choice. Claymore is a solid weapon, and its LW damage is on-par with its cursed damage. You'll almost always be two-handing it, which means you get the full strength bonus. Great Axe: The GAxe is a powerhouse of a weapon, so when I say that it's terrible on this build, I actually mean that it's a very average choice. Without curse weapon, it's high attack rating doesn't give you as much oomph, and as I mentioned earlier, you don't want to trade blows— something the GAxe excels at. On the upside, you'll be two-handing this weapon all the time. Dragon Bone Smasher: A great weapon to use, even with Light Weapon. Despite losing a lot of damage by not cursing it, the DBS still swings like a champ. SPELL SELECTION: I strongly recommend you take Light Weapon. This is a melee-focused build that uses spells for back-up, not the other way around. Light Weapon lets you hit harder; with some weapons you'll deal more damage than their cursed counterpart. If you take Light Weapon, make sure to memorize it first. That way when you scroll through your spells/miracles, it will go from Second Chance to Light Weapon to anything else you have memorized. VARIANTS: The SL 125: Take either Intelligence or Magic down to 30. Keep in mind if you drop Magic below 31, Homing Soul Arrow will only have four arrows. The Burly-Burly: A) Take either Intelligence or Magic down to 30, incrase vitality to 40. B) Take both Intelligence and Magic down to 30, increase vitality to 50. Or C) go 30/30/40 for SL 125 Burly-Burly. The Soulless Abomination: Firestorm, Warding, Firespray. Use Dragon Bone Smasher, Morion Blade, Clever Rat's Ring, and Ring of Magical Sharpness as a host. You sick bastard. The Girly-Mage: Start as a Temple Knight, leave Strength at 30. This allows you to use Pole Weapons.

Comments

Hypernova94 06 Sep 2010 00:22

Nice writeup; I believe the "Burly-Burly" variant is the best way to go honestly. 30 Vit seems a bit low for even a partial melee build and thus 30 Int should suffice.

+1, nice hybrid.

Saturday Saint 06 Sep 2010 00:59

I'm giving myself +1 because I think I deserve it.

Hyper, are you Smurfer? In any case, I've noticed the 30 vit is hurting quite a bit. I've been using the Crushing GSword as my main weapon, and I hate hitting somebody for 500-600 damage with the 1H Rolling R1, then realizing they hit me for 300 damage and made an even trade.

DBS > GS

m0ose 12 Apr 2011 19:58

Unless you need the equip burden down the DBS destroys Crushing GS. Especially @ Str 30 (~to this build) when you can just begin to 1H the DBS. Infact if utilizing this build with GS, I would definitely suggest switching to DBS, reducing str by 3 and popping them into Vit.

Astrichthyes 06 Sep 2010 06:19

Like i have said for all light weapon builds save the BBS, LW is much more effective on the meat cleaver than a crushing weapon because it already deals magic damage. While the crushing weapon may outrank the MC slightly (not tested, i'd imagine they would be at least equal), you will benefit more from LW on the MC. Trust me, i've experimented a little with this stuff. In addition, 40 VIT is necessary if you use melee as often as this build is designed for. 40 INT is not entirely necessary, you can easily get away with 30 because of the spell slots (5 should be enough). And if you plan on taking my advice, lower STR to 26 and raise DEX a little. I will warn you, of the many Str-mages i have seen, none have outdamaged a pure Str or a LW-Cleaver build… one last thing is that moon weapons don't need the buff and still do considerable damage.

TearsOfBlood198 06 Nov 2010 05:06

RH1: Kris blade +5
RH2: any moon/crescent weapon, or crushing weapon with Lw

LH1: Insanity Catalyst
LH2: DSS +5 or Brushwoodshield +5

m0ose 12 Apr 2011 19:51

"Rings: Cling Ring and Friend/Foe for Blue/Black. Cling Ring and Friend/Foe for body-form PvP. Dull Rat's/Magical Sharpness for Bodyform PvE. Cling Ring/Dull Rat's for Soulform PvE."