int-based weapons

So, I'm new and terrible at this game, working my way through the lords' souls portion, and I've sorta achieved a singularity where my int-based character is actually finally able to handle herself pretty well. I can finally handle farming for decent numbers up in anor londo for instance, even managed to scrape up a healthy number of dragon scales for my new birthday suit.... so I'm at a flexible point I guess, starting to look towards what the future might hold, and the first step I think is to settle on my final weapon now.


I got the Moonlight Butterfly Horn pretty early on and upgraded it to full fairly recently, using an eagle shield to turtle up and poke stuff, because there's nothing quite as humiliating as getting into a fight with a dragon and getting killed by a butterfly instead. I've been sticking with spears pretty consistently this whole time because turtling works pretty well for PvE, but now I'm starting to lean towards more PvP stuff, and I've *always* been huge on jolly co-op.... anyway long-story short, I'm wondering what's the *best* sword and shield set to be using for a heavily int-based build? Is there a weapon that can beat the scaling of the butterfly horn? Shield-wise can I do better than a +5 magic eagle shield? New and clueless, thanks in advance....

I'm currently playing with an INT based build as well. I've been using the Moonlight Great Sword, and from what I can tell I'm not alone here. Not only does it scale wonderfully with INT (S rank), but also has special R2 attacks that invaders fear. At least the ones who invade me. If you're dead set on using a spear though I'd try to get yourself a Channeler's Trident. I actually like to carry a spear unequipped most times just in case I feel I need it for something and I recently had to decide between the maxed Butterfly Horn and the maxed Trident. Trident blows it out of the water. Plus you can use it to do silly dances which not only will make your comrades in jollyness laugh but will make them stronger as well.

jolly laughter you say? This intrigues me.


Yeah I'm leaning towards keeping the spears, if only because using the dragon stones means you don't get any armor, and there's a limit to how squishy I like to be. With a greatshield to hide behind, at least I've got my blankey, you know? But a moonlight greatsword, eh, I guess it can't hurt to check it out.

Ah you dragoned yourself? Both of the weapons I mentioned are relatively difficult to get. The Moonlight GS is only attained by lopping off the tail of Seath the Scaleless, something that's easier said than done. If you can find someone with a large weapon clad melee build to summon so that they can do it while you draw his attention. That's exactly how I do it. The trident is a rare drop from the Channelers in the Duke's Archives. Aside from those two things I feel like the normal spears can be decent if you enchant them also. I'm partial to the Partisan due to its sweeping heavy attack, which gives it a little more functionality than only being able to jab things. I think most of the regular spears come out to be about the same when upgraded though so it's really a preference thing. If you wanted to go a little heavier the Pike isn't bad, and a lot of people swear by the Winged Spear. The more I get into this game the more I'm finding that most things really are just preference. If you're comfortable with the Butterfly Horn and are having success with it then by all means stick with it. You could do much worse.

What's your soul level and what system are you playing on? Xbox or ps3?

Oh and also the Eagle Shield is a wonderful choice. I actually use it also. It's not spectacular for pvp as any more experienced player will see you turtling with it and know that its weakness is fire, and most likely will be prepared to introduce you to some. Depending on what you want out of it I'd recommend keeping it as a standard shield. What I mean is resetting it to before you enhanced it for magic and upgrading it from there. If you're spear turtling chances are you're blocking more physical attacks than magic ones and magically upgrading it is only really going to affect which damage you can block more efficiently. All that aside the Eagle has great stability and does 100% physical damage reduction. Both are great shield traits. It also is one of the better shields for blocking lightning attacks and is the lightest great shield there is. None of these are bad things.

sl 75-or-so now, making a move on Seath and I'm about halfway through I think. Playing on PS3.

Yeah, I was wondering what the upgrades for shields accomplished. The wiki is a little unclear, but under "Magic Weapon" it just says "scales with INT," so I assumed a magic-shield would do the same. Does magic eagle shield reduce fire damage at least, despite the weakness? If so I might just keep it -- between int-scaling spears and spellcasting I usually don't *have* to turtle up against physical attacks for very long. I mean I still kite as much as possible, with some Soulmass floating around for good measure, it's just one of those "there if you need it" things I guess.


As far as dragon-body thing goes, it's got the advantage of speed, which I like -- but it also means I can't wear my dark sun crown for bonus magic damage, so it's a tradeoff. Everyone tells me casters are squishy anyway so you might as well be naked. I was really hoping the "Force" powerstone would be a lot more effective than it is -- although it does give a nice attack bonus, which I haven't tested on PVP yet, but I assume helps.


As far as the spear thing goes, I do like my partisan -- the reach leaves a lot to be desired though. Should I be shooting for enchanted +5 or magic +10, in general? Assuming I don't just pick up a moonlight greatsword and retool myself into a brawler?

The attack of magic weapons scales with int, not the damage reduction. So I wouldn't recommend upgrading a shield to magic/enchanted. If you can put the points into str you can get a better shield to turtle behind (the best is havels but that takes 50 str).

As far as your dragon body goes its more for melee builds, apart from the breath and the force attack all you get is a bonus to fist damage. Being an int build I wouldn't recommend it unless you plan on going bare fist.

As far as your partisan going magic or enchanted check out this website. https://sites.google.com/site/darksoulstats/home. You can put your projected stats in a table and it tells you about how much damage a weapon can do.

From my personal experience I'd go with the moonlight greatsword. Turtles often die to bleed and backstabs in PvP. On the other hand, the moonlight greatsword often kills backstabbers.

I couldn't agree more. With all of that. I chose enchanted weapons for my build. Before I got the Moonlight GS I was using an enchanted katana, and I still rock an enchanted longbow as my sniping weapon for pve. It's my understanding that magic upgrades are a mix between scaling with the weapons regular stat, like STR or DEX, while giving you a slight mix with INT scaling. While enchanted drops that standard stat radically and substitutes it for an equally radical boost in INT scaling. So essentially if your build is more like a spellsword, like if your relying on both STR or DEX for melee combat and INT for your magic or whatever, then a magic weapon is probably good. But then if you want more of a pure spellcaster, one whose melee weapons are secondary to its spells as is in my case, then enchanted is probably a better bet because whatever you have equipped will benefit more from your massive INT stat. I could be wrong, as this is just the understanding I've gained from experience and nothing more. But tool around with it and see what you like. Also its not against the rules to carry two shields around. You don't have to equip both at once. I sometimes like to carry a second unequipped shield that picks up my Eagles weaknesses, like fire and magic. I've been carrying the Crystal Ring Shield as a secondary and swapping it out if I know I'll be fighting something that will be exploiting those weaknesses. I have an SL 84 melee build if you want some help with Seath. My PSN name is the same as my forum name. If you want to coordinate something with me add me and I'll help you implement the tactic I explained earlier.

coordination sounds like work :drunken: I'll look for your sign.


So it sounds like I'm getting a big endorsement for the moonlight sword. Figure I'll grab it and decide what to do with my stats after. Has anyone ever tried to make an int-based melee fighter? I know I'll miss out on some stat-overlap with, like strength requirements for heavy shields and that kind of thing -- but I'm just thinking, feed enough souls into vitality, throw in the right weapon, there's probably no reason I can't be a caster AND a brawler -- if not totally specialized one way or the other, at least a little dangerous in both.


@the two shields strategy -- good thinking. I'm oblivious enough that I didn't realize my shield had a weakness -- still I used to carry around grass crest in case I needed a lot of fast stamina, so it's not a foreign concept. I'll check through my toybox and see what stands out.

@dragon for melee -- my thinking was, people tell you "your mage might as well be naked other than the crown," and I was honestly hoping the dragon torso stone would leave my headgear alone. As it stands, I DO still like the extra speed, and if I ever need to stab someone the force/powerup trick is pretty helpful (so far). So it's not a totally wasted effort, but I see what you're saying.

@spreadsheet website -- now THAT, right there, that's what I need! Awesome, thanks. Follow-up question.... I've noticed (recently, because I'm slow in the head) that you can't use "Magic weapon" on some already-magic weapons. Is there a comparison between, like, a +5 enchanted zwiehander and say, a crystal zwiehander with magic weapon/whatever used on it as a buff?

Not a direct comparison that I know of. But there is data on the wiki and this forum that can tell you about how much damage the enchantments add. Some of its in the stickies on this forum. I never recommend relying on enchantments for melee combat, but a +15weapon with CMW is always better then a fully upgraded weapon alone. Crystal +5 with CMW will out do the normal weapon but be careful they cannot be repaired. Depending on how much str and dex you're putting in your character you might want to make your weapon raw. Like I said, use the spreadsheets to compare damages and figure out what works best for you.

As far as the speed for the dragon body goes, you get that by being under a certain equip burden. So try and keep your dude under 25% burdened and if you want wear the DWGR. You'll move just as fast without the disadvantages.

Though Crystal items normally can't be repaired since she is using an Int build can't she use the sorcery to do so? As well doesn't a shield retain more stability if you level it up flat rather than go into some sort of magic effect with it? Parrying also seems fairly key in PvP, as most people know how to handle a turtle, especially those with bleed weapons. Spears though to my understanding are pretty good for PvP, as they are harder to parry given their reach. I might recommend a pike for its range if you have the strength, but if not I agree with the above mentioned Partizan and its sweep attack. I hope I helped a bit, I'm not exactly an expert on things yet but I love to help when I can.

Don't underestimate the power of sorcery for an INT build. Depending on how you spend your soul level points magic can be devastating. I started my build with the same intentions, in that I figured I'd be relying on melee and ability to use sorcery would just be back up distance damage. Once you start getting access to better spells, depending on your INT, sorcery can be incredibly powerful. But again, it all depends on what you want out of your character build.

Well, my ideal is that I just sort of stumble through the game blindly and hit pvp opportunities mostly by chance, invasion, or maybe if someone picks up my dragon eye from time to time (but usually I'm leaving white signs everywhere I go, not the eye, so whatever). So to that end, it doesn't *really* matter what I'm carrying.

For now.

The main thing is figuring out the best scaling weapons, and it looks like I had my head on straight when I upgraded that Partisan early in the game to +5 magic. Should be short work now to make it full-up enchanted, and once I get that and the moonsword I can toy with 'em and see which I like best. I used a bastard sword in Demons, so I'm betting the transition to a greatsword would be relatively smooth. Also key info finding out that a "MAGIC shield" is a worthless branch of upgrades, so I'll make sure to remedy that blunder here shortly. I might try on a pike too to see if I like it, since I've got so used to the range on the butterfly horn.... anyway thanks for the tips, praise the sun, amazing trap ahead. look for my sign by Seath, like, all day tomorrow.