Crown of Dark Sun.

I'm wondering, how viable is it to switch from the Dusk Crown to the Crown of Dark Sun if going up against another Mage Build. I know the Dusk Crown provides a bigger multiplier, but doesn't it also increase the amount of magic damage you take by even more?

http://www.mugenmonkey.com/darksouls

When you change things out you'll see the bonuses and penalties in the bottom right box. Yes the crown of dusk reduces magic defense by 30%, which is huge. It also raises magic damage by 20% while dark crown raises it by 10%. The big concern here is how much more the crown of the dark sun weighs. You'll need a build with a lot of wasted weight or you need to swap out another piece at the same time to make up for it.

After that, just depends how fast you can get into your menu and swap the pieces out when you see an obvious mage build. May take time away from you setting up your own buffs, but it can be done pretty quickly as long as you organize your inventory.

Thanks. I've been working on my menu swap speed, so maybe I'll be able to make it work.

If you try this out, I would probably swap to big hat instead of dark sun crown. The 10% damage is miniscule and the big hat has the best magic defense of any helm in the game as far as I know, which is the whole purpose of swapping against another mage. Also I'd only suggest it as a viable tactic against a more melee heavy spell sword or mlgs/horn build as any amount of magic defense vs getting hti directly w/ spells, especially beads wont really make a difference.

I've found the dark sun crown to be a nice alternative for pyromancers.  It stacks with the bellowing ring for pyromancy as well, but you don't have the nasty spell weakness you get from the dusk crown.  As a result, you can get surprisingly high magic defense and also throw in a crest shield, and then go toe to toe with mages almost as effectively as with a faith build.

I always have no fear in my heart while wearing the crown of dusk. I mean ideally I'm not getting hit anyhow so my magic defense doesn't matter.

But specifically against the likes of Velka's and the MLBH I do at times take off the crown and put on a sack (weight restrictions) because unlike spells it's tough to go an entire fight without taking a few pokes.

Well, Jans just said what I was going to say. Dusk's debilitations don't really bother me much but if I was going to menu-swap to another helm I'd just be mindful that whatever extra weight (keep in mind, the Dusk Crown is downright featherweight at .4 weight units) I put on wouldn't put me into a heavier roll.

If you build around the Crown of the Dark Sun, you can equip Logan's Hat at the same weight.