Sorcerer start level run

Hello folks,

I have seen vagetas311's video
"Dark Souls - SL 3 Sorcerer Playthrough Pt.8 (w/commentary)".

in this video at about minute 21 he started explaining why he had to curse himself to manage to get 4 Kings down. That sounds pretty odd to me!
Honestly, I don't understand this, partly because my english listening skills aren't that great.
Can you explain me this again?

btw,
problem of a sl3 Sorcerer is that the spells take too long and deal too little damage to kill a king just before the next spawns.
He also has so little stats that he can use only a dagger but the hand axe as well. . What I don't understand is why don't use a lightning hand axe +5? Maybe the dps is lower than the dps of a dagger.

Many thanks!

best wishes

Dagger has amazing DPS so, yes.

And I imagine he wanted curse for easier Red Tearstone Activation

It's hard to imagine anything out of reinforced club/hand axe/dagger elemental and PW (which you can use off a base pyro glove and sorc has attunement for it) would struggle, even without RTSR. In NG+ maybe you could be the one hitpoint wonder (you're close enough anyway) and do all of that but also equip sanctus, get cursed, and use PW + Lingering to hack at them.

I'd imagine lighting dagger or hand axe +5, PW, RTSR would be able to keep up with the 4kings regardless of new game iteration, you just couldn't afford to take even one hit . You'd need a shield too, to block the homing magic. I think in Vageta's case he brought a shield that let him estus + block the homing attack to get instantly back to RTSR range.

now I understand. He uses a shield with only partial dmg protection.
In case he has to heal he needs to get back into the RTSR health level. So he blocks controlled, gets hurt until RTSR is activated and then he tries to only dodge again. That is cool, but complicated too. One has to observe a lot of thinks.

The only complicated part is knowing the damage + what shield reduces it by just the right amount. Essentially you need to dodge absolutely everything except that one attack, which when you see it coming you heal + block it, then go back to dodging.

The planning is complicated, but the execution really isn't (though as always, execution vs 4kings isn't easy, just not too complicated ).

I'm doing a SL 3 all bosses handicapped run. I'm using a fire reinforced club +10, ascended pyro glove, and oolacile catalyst.

I can also do an extreme hyper mage (RTSR and PW active and not dying). Does ionsane damage.

Yeah lingering + sanctus could make it nasty.  You don't have the stats for sanctus though, so I'm not sure it's reliable vs 4 kings due to their homing attack screw job (maybe carry a 2nd shield and flask?  margins would be tight to say the least).  Vs most other non-BoC bosses though dodging should suffice as a 1 hit point wonder.  I don't think you would need super hyper mode on 4kings until multiple NG+ though, lingering + fast lightning weapon boosted by PW and a near flawless attempt/some luck would probably get you through NG+...should be doable if Vageta was able to do NG +7 with just RTSR, though that fight is usually not a joke in challenge runs.

With "all bosses" it would probably be a smidge unnecessary vs things like moonlight butterfly, capra demon, pinwheel, etc.

How do you take out quelag?  Sorcery or just PW + reinforced club?  I'm assuming you don't summon mildred and bow lock her though doing that w/o stat requirements is pretty lulzy .  Sorcery would be pretty straightforward I suppose; PW + OIC + CoD + great soul arrows would tear her a new one, even if you didn't wedge into that nook that lets you stun her with spells while locked.

For the 4 Kings, I tanked it up, got 20 estus, and spammed Chaos Great Fireball (when they were closing in) and Great Combustion. Use the Darkmoon Seance ring to get a 4th slot, equip PW in the last slot. Once you cast PW, change over to the Bellowing Dragoncrest Ring. You'll drop the PW (which has already been used) and can do massive damage to the kings.

Haha wow that's overkill .  I still remember doing them with just grass crest shield on my back and lightning spear +5 at SL 10 for the invasion of lowbies event.  My skill increased several times over grinding those attempts and failures.  I actually came to like the freaking theme even lol.

But I learned that it was plenty possible to do it with just the lightning spear, and in fact you even have a small margin for error where you can actually stay ahead of king spawn rate (barely).  I'm sure with the boosted stamina regen and damage from PW that one could flatten them in NG, even without any other spells/pyros!

BoC path would be a joke as usual (centipede even easier than normal with magic damage).  I could see some issues vs nito unless you get a divine weapon (divine club +5 from AL is my standard and can be 2h at SL 3 though, so not too bad), and the tomb of giants itself is really a matter of doing a big run-by.  That just leaves Seath.  Seath is probably easiest with pyros, but PW + melee should be fine there too.  Gwyn is a parry fest like usual.

O&S are probably the hardest non-DLC fight unless you just spam great soul arrow on Ornstein in 1st part of the fight and then pillar cheese smough I guess .  Though in DLC is where you can bust out the super hyper mode or just rely on the seance + PW pyros or sorceries.  I guess you have extra souls with no leveling and higher tier sorceries being useless, so you could afford to build up the pyro glove.  Stacking souls, killing quelag + ceaseless + using eingi would probably be a seamless way to go, though if you're not a pyro to start you'd have to egghead it to get his glove .

ToG wasn't bad at all. Get the Occult Club from Anor, and delevel it to a Divine +5. Tank it up with stone armor. Fall down, heal, kill the little skellies. After that, Nito is easy.

With Seath, I got cursed, did the hyper mage trick (PW and RTSR active). 2 Chaos Fireballs almost killed him. Did it on the first try.

Pikachu and Snorlax: Chaos Fireball and GC with PW active. Works well.

reim0027 wrote:I'm doing a SL 3 all bosses handicapped run.  I'm using a fire reinforced club +10, ascended pyro glove, and oolacile catalyst.

What do you mean with handicapped?

reim0027 wrote:
With Seath, I got cursed, did the hyper mage trick (PW and RTSR active).  2 Chaos Fireballs almost killed him.  Did it on the first try.  

Pikachu and Snorlax: Chaos Fireball and GC with PW active.  Works well.

How do you got cursed without dying?

What is GC?
EDIT: Ah, you probably mean Great Combustion, don't you?

Thanks for your help!

Dodge his initial crystal attack and run through the crystals afterwards, this builds up the curse meter, you'll lose a little health but not as much as if you hit by the first attack. Obvioulsy have as little curse res as possible(no humanity or curse res gear).

GC = great combustion.

Micha369 wrote:

reim0027 wrote:I'm doing a SL 3 all bosses handicapped run.  I'm using a fire reinforced club +10, ascended pyro glove, and oolacile catalyst.

What do you mean with handicapped?

That is the handicap.  Take the weakest class, not level up, make him powerful (as powerful as can be with minimal strength and dexterity) and beat all bosses (including DLC).

Micha369 wrote:

reim0027 wrote:
With Seath, I got cursed, did the hyper mage trick (PW and RTSR active).  2 Chaos Fireballs almost killed him.  Did it on the first try.  

Pikachu and Snorlax: Chaos Fireball and GC with PW active.  Works well.

How do you got cursed without dying?

Thanks for your help!

I die when I get cursed.  I go into the depths and let the frogs curse me.

reim0027 wrote:

Micha369 wrote:

reim0027 wrote:I'm doing a SL 3 all bosses handicapped run.  I'm using a fire reinforced club +10, ascended pyro glove, and oolacile catalyst.

What do you mean with handicapped?

That is the handicap.  Take the weakest class, not level up, make him powerful (as powerful as can be with minimal strength and dexterity) and beat all bosses (including DLC).

So this is what I'm trying to do right now as well. But actually, no PW is allowed, because it is not a sorcerer spell but a Pyro! But not sure whether I will manage this up to the end!
Until now I got it to O&S and today I will beat them.
What I only use atm is a Fire Dagger+5, but maybe I should craft a club as well and use it 2h.
What would be a strong alternative to a dagger, having only str 9 and dex 11?

I'm just asking myself, can I 2h a weapon that requires str 14? Probably not! Have to try it!

According to mugenmonkey 9 str is not enough to 2h a 14 str weapon (makes sense, you'd have needed generous rounding).

A 2h elemental reinforced club will be as strong for your sorcerer as any other build 2h the weapon, because elementals have no scaling. The two most popular weapons for Vageta were reinforced club and hand axe for a reason.

Banning pyro is interesting, as there's nothing about the simple SL 3 restriction to disallow pyros .

Don't forget, however, that because you have 11 dex (pyro has sub 10), that you can also use any of these weapons 2h:

Battle Axe
Long Sword
Broad Sword
Spear (including lightning spear)
Demon's Spear
Moonlight Butterfly Horn

Unfortunately, the light xbow is not available to you. Despite the above, the hand axe and reinforced club give you the most raw melee damage. This makes them superior in most situations:

Reinforced club: Good for its poise break and bleed, can stagger many enemies.

Hand axe: Fast weapon with good damage/hit that is better for its 2-swipe action against enemies like 4kings.

You can melee 4kings to death with either on regular NG no problem I bet. O&S you can just abuse with 40 boosted great souls arrows + whatever. AL is really straightforward with hidden body too.

I'd recommend a short bow for BoC; it will serve its function even though you don't have the stats to use it and is a small price to pay to counter-bs that boss.

Hello folks,

TheMeInTeam wrote:According to mugenmonkey 9 str is not enough to 2h a 14 str weapon (makes sense, you'd have needed generous rounding).

A 2h elemental reinforced club will be as strong for your sorcerer as any other build 2h the weapon, because elementals have no scaling.  The two most popular weapons for Vageta were reinforced club and hand axe for a reason.

Banning pyro is interesting, as there's nothing about the simple SL 3 restriction to disallow pyros .

Don't forget, however, that because you have 11 dex (pyro has sub 10), that you can also use any of these weapons 2h:

Battle Axe
Long Sword
Broad Sword
Spear (including lightning spear)
Demon's Spear
Moonlight Butterfly Horn

Unfortunately, the light xbow is not available to you.  Despite the above, the hand axe and reinforced club give you the most raw melee damage.  This makes them superior in most situations:

Reinforced club:  Good for its poise break and bleed, can stagger many enemies.

Hand axe:  Fast weapon with good damage/hit that is better for its 2-swipe action against enemies like 4kings.

You can melee 4kings to death with either on regular NG no problem I bet.  O&S you can just abuse with 40 boosted great souls arrows + whatever.  AL is really straightforward with hidden body too.

I'd recommend a short bow for BoC; it will serve its function even though you don't have the stats to use it and is a small price to pay to counter-bs that boss.

Many thanks for that detailed information!
A lot of them I already have experienced and can agree with!

My SL3 Sorcerer run is almost done! I have the four Souls for the lord vessel!
Only Four Kings was not feasible for me to solo. Magics is too weak and slow and the low stamina of only 8 Endurance is a real problem for my Lightning Reinforced Club. I tried really a lot of times and didn't manage! One really has to dodge all attacks and something always went wrong in that fight! I had to summon phantoms.

O&S and Seath (Seath in Hyper mode) were easy. The Composite Bow really was a good choice for BoC - really easy!
For Nito only the 3 Skeletons combined with Nitos screaming sword attack were complicated. I had to try 5 times to get all tree finally backstabbed with my Divine Dagger +5. After they were killed Nito was very easy by spamming Soul arrows at him.

DLC - a big problem for a SL3 Sorcerer!
Before I go and try Gwyn I wanted to look into the DLC. But my first shock came at the Sanctuary Guardian! I did him with my sl1 in solo already. I was not capable of beating him with my SL3 Sorcerer! I tried a lot of times, but I had no answer for his massive aggressivity!  I finally had to summon help and even this took us a few trials!

Artorias is the same! No chance! My Great Soul Arrows only do 68 dmg. And I have 40 of them and by far not all really hit him. I probably must stay in Hyper mode for the length of the whole fight. But Artorias always eventually hits you at least a little and this of course is the end! So I decided Hypermode is not feasible.
Using my Club in 2H mode is also a problem! I have no shield and he often one shot me.
To reach Artorias with the relatively short range of my Club I often tried the 2h R2 jump attack, which has a decent reach, but for the price of consuming away all stamina!

I summoned help but we haven't managed Artorias yet up to now.
My conclusion is DLC is not good for a Sl3 Sorcerer. It will cost too much time and it gets frustrating. I probably will kill Artorias and Kalameet and Manus only with sunnoned phantoms.
Or I could simply level up a little but this would mean switching to a run I already did - a sl1 Pyromancer with str. 12 and dex 11.

I really admire vageta311 for his skills! He soloed 4K of course! Thanks for the very entertaining videos!

But what I didn't find on video is the DLC done by a sl3 sorcerer.

Reinforced club is the way to go. Stuns, bleeds, and is powerful. You'll have to 2H it though.

I've done every boss except Kalameet and Gwyn. Not sure if I'm going to do Kalameet. I'm not interested in a 30+ minute fight where I could be one shot at any time.

Hello,

yes, I admid such 30 min fights are too much for me too. And one has to try a lot and time flies.It was my personal challenge. I only wanted to get this experience and feeling too. Now that I know how it is, I'll do some other stuff. I like to summon others.

yesterday I took a rest from trying Artorias at first and I went to Ariamis' World. I was so frightend about what to expect in the bone wheel hideout. But I'm proud that I can tell you I did them all without dying! Yes Reinforced club and soul arrows are my method.

After painted world I summoned 2 phantoms (made an appointment in the chat rooms) and together we killed Artorias.
This too is part of the challenge of a low level run - to find white signs in high level areas.