Near Pure Mage

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Build summary	Just a step short of a pure mage in exchange for weaponry and defense
Recommended starting class(es)	Royal / Knight
Recommended Soul Level	125
	Recommended stats (Leave at default (**) if not raised)
Vitality	35 / 37
Will/Intelligence	40
Endurance	15
Strength	16
Dexterity	**
Magic	40
Faith	40
Luck	**
Recommended equipment	If you do not want variation in your melee, or more specifically, don't want to use a spear, stick with the "Knight" starting class. LH 1: Rune Shield +5 Dark Silver Shield +5 -The Magic defense may not come in handy in every fight, but it is indispensable in others. *The Knight's Shield +10 may be substituted when fighting against foreseen, purely physical attacks. Works well with PvE LH 2: Kris Blade +5 RH 1: Moon Winged Spear +5 - Exact same stats as the knight sword Moon Knight Sword +5 - *See Above* - These two weapons are interchangeable and only have tactical differences. (I.E. Arc Based Strikes Vs. Shielded Pokes) Moon Kilij +5 - Weapon of Choice RH 2: Talisman of Beast Rings: Soul Form: Slot 1: Cling Ring Slot 2: Ring of Magical Sharpness Body Form: Slot 1: Ring of Magical Sharpness Slot 2: Ring of Magical Nature || Thief's Ring || Dull/Clever Cat's Ring Armor: Full Venerable Sage's Set ("minus" the hood) Monk's Head Collar Consumables: - Augite of Guidance* - Dark Moon Grass* - New Moon Grass - Old Spice* - Fresh Spice *=Bare-bone set up. Actually my prefered but sometimes grasses and spices are scarce.
Recommended spells/miracles	Spell Sets: - Firestorm, Ignite, Soul Ray [O] - This is one of my favorites sets because you essentially have close, medium, and long range covered, doing excellent damage and allowing for use of your weapons and spells appropriately. - Homing Soul Arrow, Ignite, Death Cloud [D] - This set is excellent at keeping pressure on your opponents while evading or using your weapon. Ignite is a personal favorite, but it would only be used as a CQC measure so using [Firespray] and [Poison Cloud] instead of Ignite is another option. - Firestorm, Fireball, Cloak [O] - A semi-ninja fireball would have devastating effects as well as a hidden firestorm allowing for massive damage, but this would rely on closer fighting with your sword and better timing. - Fireball, Warding, Death Cloud [D] - A decent choice , this will rely on your sword skills and dodging more. - Firestorm, Soul Ray, Warding [O] - I feel "meh" about this because of the limited magic attacks, but being able to avoid a death by combo allows for a better position to cast magic and strike W/ Ring of Magical Nature: - Firestorm, Fireball, Ignite [O] - Timing is beyond key in this set, but once you get that down, it devastates the enemy. - Firestorm, Soul Ray, Ignite, Cloak [O] - This is a full blown ninja mage and ignite as well as soul ray become so much more lethal due to the lack of knowledge people will have on your position of attack. *This spell set is not compatible with Second Chance* - Firestorm, Ignite, Soul Ray, Firespray [O] - By far my favorite set because this really just seems to have it all in terms of offense and truly captures the strength of a mage. You will be able to easily keep up the pressure with this build. The spell choices are really limitless, but if you choose to make a selection from these sets, be aware of the [O] and [D] markers as they stand for offensive and defensive respectively. The spirit of this build is manifested in the offensive sets, but the defensive ones can be effective if used tactically. (although I advise them much less due to the fact that they would be more suited for a sort of spellsword build) Miracles: Second Chance God's Wrath God's Wrath is easily interchangeable with any other miracle the user wants ANOTHER NOTE: I've found that having to cycle through so many miracles and spells can cause blunders during PVPs, so it is a good option to just keep second chance if you also feel like you suffer/will suffer from this. (although I had two extra miracles on at the time)
Gameplay tips and progression	Quick Start Guide: 1. Start up your character; Beat 1-1 2. Level up Vit and Mag and blow through 4-1 by using the crescent Falchion and make sure to obtain the kilij near the vanguard. 3. Once Vit is in the 20s, keep focusing on magic and intelligence and beat 3-1, remembering to obtain a catalyst (if you started as a knight), the ring of magical sharpness from the coffin(s), free freke, and shards of moonlight stone (I suggest duping for ease if you're just trying to quickly pull together a build); learn soul ray 4. Beat 2-1, making sure to grab the Kris Blade; use the stones to upgrade the kilij to +6 and take the moon upgrade path 5. Beat 1-2 and 1-3; Rescue Yuria keep focusing on magic and intelligence, but try to start capping Vit as well; Use armored spider soul for either ignite or fire spray (Or both if you choose to dupe) 6. At this point in time, your magic and intelligence should be high enough to blow through the flamelurker 7. Obtain enough colorless demon souls to obtain a +5 Kris Blade; Continue putting points into intelligence but now begin putting points in faith as opposed to magic as much 8. Continue on and beat 2-3. Again your faced with a split decision about firestorm or fireball. 9. Obtain the talisman of beast (I do it by killing BP scrivir) 10. You should now have a decent bases for a mage from which to grow off of. Strategies can be seen in the spell set description partially. I'll most likely add tips later.

Comments

m0ose 22 Apr 2011 01:31

If you chose Knight as a starting character you'd save 2 points from dex & still meet the requirements to use a Kilij.

iXo-Pancakez-oXi 04 Jun 2011 19:10

Your point was noted awhile ago, but until recently I've realized that variation isn't always what people want so I finally added in your note. Thank you for pointing that out.

Leader of The Magi 25 May 2011 22:23

Not bad, pretty good actually if you want a balanced mage character who can fall back on melee if the enemy gets too close. A little more reliable compared to using ignite when an enemy gets close. +1

Astrichthyes 06 Jun 2011 05:31

There's a better way to do this. Melee+magic = spellsword. If you want a strong spellcaster that can make someone hurt when they get close, default END and use the estoc. Gnarly backstab damage, very quick, good range, it's all you need. Don't take this personally, but this hybrid is not very strong. You have neither the stamina to truly punish with melee, nor the spellcasting stats to out-class another mage, so it's really just an odd in-between :( for a melee-capable spellcaster, i recommend using the iCat with 50 mag. A pure spellcaster will use the ToB with at least 50m-40f and at least 40 vitality so you don't OHKO from a blessed GrAxe user's groundstab. As is, this build will not merit a +1 from me because you will always be outclassed by a more refined pure mage or a spellsword. In addition, turtling is NOT advised when you only have ~100 stamina. A kilij will break right through that very quickly, especially while you poke. Just do without the shield and stick something on your back for the passive effects.

Hybrid of a Hybrid

TheSpaceships 01 Jul 2011 16:14

Nice Spellsword/Pure Mage hybrid (weird, it's a hybrid of a hybrid :P). Would taking Intelligence down to 30 reduce your spell sets greatly? I noticed a number of them contain Firestorm which I've found not to be the most reliable thing. If you replaced it with, say, Firespray in a said Spell set, that would reduce the number of slots that you would have to use. That would free up 10 SLs to invest either into Vit and Mag/Fth or into Str/Dex to expand your weapons array to maybe an Uchi or something. O_o

Another thing that you might try (I've never done this before so I don't know how well it works, and this would be based around an entirely different build, so I don't know why I am writing this) is using iCat with the 40 Int and 50 Mag wearing Phosphorescent Pole on your back. I guess that would give you some passive MP regen to compensate for the halved MP bar. Then you could invest the 14 saved SLs from Faith into other things. o_O Just some ideas. Either way its a +1 from me for uniqueness and versatility, though could be tweaked a tiny bit.

TheSpaceships 05 Jul 2011 04:32

Also for Soul Form Ring slot#2, Friend's/Foe's Ring would be the better choice since it gives you the exact same 20% Damage increase not only to Magic but to melée as well. Plus it doesn't lower MagDef. Just food for thought.

iXo-Pancakez-oXi 16 Jul 2011 20:38

Good call. I'll try that out. Hadn't thought of that. I'm feeling a little derpy. Thank you.

TheSpaceships 18 Jul 2011 05:08

I still don't know exactly what derpy means. :p So don't feel too derpy. xD