Description
The Blue Flame… This is a complex weapon and I have no idea where to begin so I’m just going to rattle this off in bullet points so we are clear on some information.
- Stat requirements to Powerstance are 19 Strength and 22 Dex. I would check the Intelligence requirement but honestly for this build to work you want at least 40 Int.
- Works as a catalyst, spell damage increases with the magic damage portion on the weapon. This means a Magic Blue Flame while only having a total of around 23 AR will at least 200 more damage with your Soul Spear.
- Can be buffed to increase the damage further, also effects spell damage. This is an important point. When I was testing catalysts out at 50Int, first place is the Staff of Wisdom by a significant margin. I assumed the S-scaling staff of Amana with the human bonus would be second, but no. The second best sorcery impliment in the game is a +5 Magic Blue Flame buffed with Crystal Magic Weapon. Against the infinitely spawning zombies in the Undead Crypt (My default test subjects.) this combination only did about 50 damage less than the staff of Wisdom. Holy shit.
- You can buff both weapons at once and powerstance with them, and still cast with the Right Hand Strong Attack. A powerstance + CMW strong attack was dealing 764 damage versus the ditch zombies. That’s compared to the CMW buffed Moonlight Greatsword 2HR1 which does 804 damage. Really crazy close there, and the attack is much faster. I can not stress enough how amazing the damage output on this combination is. The best I have found in the game.
-Versatility. Quick light attacks, spell casting without switching impliments, rolling pokes, and devastating powerstance strong attacks and jumping attacks, not to mention the crazy switching you can do with spells, weaving in soul greatswords and guard breaks and parries. There is always a surprise with this style.
Gear:
Hexer’s Hood - Extra castings of your spells. You want that second CMW. You need 20 Int/Faith to get it, but you can farm up enough souls to make the jump from 5 faith to 20 then just burn a soul vessel and put it into more important things.
Clear Bluestone Ring +2 - More casting speed. NG+ Skeleton Lords. (Easy fight, use an ascetic.)
Southern Ritual Band +2 - More attunement slots. NG+ Skorpioness Najka. (Easy fight, use an ascetic.)
Third Dragon Ring - More stamina, more health, more equip weight, more awesome all around.
Binoculars - Spell Scope, available right in Majula. Mandatory for anyone that casts spells.
The rest of your gear is a matter of choice. I try to stay under 30% for the best roll possible, but you could easily go full tank. Your weapon slots total to a measely 6.3 units, so you can really back on the poise if you want to. The last ring slot I use for utility. Usually a serpent ring or the ever-important Ring of Life Protection.
My current build:
Starting Class - Sorcerer
SL - 150
VGR - 50
END - 20
VIT - 20
ATN - 20
STR - 19
DEX - 22
ADP - 8
INT - 40
FTH - 5
Look at that VGR! Staying alive is more important to me than a few more attunement slots and a pittance of spell damage. All your bases are covered and you get 2136(!) hp, making you a monster to kill in PVP. In case that isn’t your thing, you can drop the VGR and add back into Int and Atn. For PVE purposes I go with 20 VGR (~1400 health. Pretty decent, actually) and then 40 Attunement for slots and casting speed, and then 50 Intelligence for the Staff of Wisdom on those occasions I decide to use it, as well as the deep int spells without having to farm as much spice.
As for what I attune… You have seven slots to play with. For a good spread I would go with Crystal Magic Weapon, Homing Crystal Soul Mass, Soul Greatsword, Soul Vortex, Soul Bolt, Soul Spear, and Chameleon.
I personally use CMW, HCSM, SG, then as many Soul Spear slots as I can fit. You can get soul spear easily with an ascetic, and right now I have six scrolls of it just for laughs or longer PVE stints. What I like about using so many different slots for it is Amber Herbs restore a spell per slot, meaning if you run a total of five slots of it, you are getting five spears back. Super awesome stuff.
The only down side is farming the 30 Twinkling Titanite needed to upgrade both blades. I did it with ascetics in the Dragon Aerie, which is super trivial as a mage anyway. I usually get around 9 a pass.. Once for the dragons, and then a second time to make sure I killed all the crystal lizards. Not all that bad, actually.
As a side note, this is also a fully actualized Moonlight Greatsword Build. You just swap your weapons for that and a staff and the whole world is ready to rage. Especially with you 2.1k HP, but be warned, you will earn no friends by doing that.
Stats
| Starting Class | Sorcerer |
|---|---|
| Level | 150 |
| Vigor | 50 |
| Endurance | 20 |
| Vitality | 20 |
| Attunement | 20 |
| Strength | 19 |
| Dexterity | 22 |
| Adaptability | 8 |
| Intelligence | 41 |
| Faith | 5 |
Weapons
+5 Magic Blue Flame / +5 Magic Blue Flame
Equipment
Hexer's Hood, Third Dragon Ring, Clear Bluestone Ring +2, Southern Ritual Ring +2
Spells
Crystal Magic Weapon, any other Sorcery.
the 5 faith comes from the hexers hood, or?
I believe so. The starting value for Faith as a Sorcerer is 4 and the hood adds +1 to Int/Fth each
This is by far the most versatile and deadly build I have ever played!
what is your agi at with this build please?
I checked the stats, and a +5 Magic Blue Flame has only 3 more base Magic power and less Int scaling than a +5 Poison Blue Flame. Wouldn't it be better to make it Poison, then, due to +melee DPS and +scaling?
Unless I'm misunderstanding what you are trying to say (which is possible here) , he explains why we make the weapon magic:
" Works as a catalyst, spell damage increases with the magic damage portion on the weapon"
Go look at the weapon stats.
OD is correct.
So then it would be better to make the blue flames poison instead of magic there's only 3 points lost as opposed to gaining 6 points but losing 60 melee damage. Also the magic scaling is a b when made poison instead of magic which gives a C only….
It depends on what you want to do with them. If you will never use your Blue Flames to cast a Soul Spear or Soul Greatsword, instead only CMWing them and going in for power stance melee, then yes, bleed/poison/raw is the way to go, because that deals the most melee damage, and while you're at it, ditch the Clear Bluestone Ring for a Ring of Blades or Red Tearstone Ring. If, however, you also want the option to be effective at ranged spell combat, going with anything other than a magic infusion will drop your spellcast damage by 20% or more using CMW buffed weapons.
Because you have been so kind to answer questions, I hope you wouldn't mind answering these.
I've started playing towards this build, and since I PVE to get there, it is quite the struggle, but I am persistent, and I have gotten to Shrine of Amana with relative ease.
because I pve, I have a limited amount of resources, and I want to start upgrading my armour, please go into detail about what armour you can wear in pve, and/or pvp, so I can start upgrading it :)
what weapons can you suggest I use before obtaining the Blue Flames, I am running dual Mace now, and they are starting to feel weak in Drangleic Castle.
Thank you.
Hey Enyeez,
I ran this build up from scratch in PVE and I recently reached NG+.
From the beginning i grabbed fire longsword (good int scaling) as well as heide knights sword and ran through the game until I farmed dual blue flame. During my progress I upgraded both (fire long and heide knight sword) to +10. In fact the combination of heide knights and fire long sword doing much more dmg in melee than the dual blue flame but with the loss of versatility caused by switching to my catalyst.
BTW: If you like big f swords I recommend farming moonlight great sword by killing the asended form of The Duke's Dear Freja. I infused the great sowrd to "enchanted" and ran up with ring of blades for massive phys dmg and high int scaling.
BR
Ruemeling
p.s. sorry for my bad english ;)
I haven't tried it, but from the way you describe it it sounds like the most effective and especially fun build i have ever seen :-)
That kind of physical damage in combination with versatility, speed and the sheer amount of hp must be a beast O.o
I am in awe, and I love the game for those possibilities, so thanks for that!
You can also use the Dragonrider's Twinblade fairly well with this build. I've had a blast with a bleed-infused Dragonrider Twinblade in PvE whilst using the stats that you suggested and an extra point in STR. Haven't tried any other infusions on it, but that's just preference anyway.
Another Question: How do you Parry with this build? (its written in the description). Even when you dont powerstance but use two blue flames, you can only attack with the offhand one on R2, right? Or do you use a shield as well?
wrath you can parry by 2handi g a blue flame and pressing L2
This is a terrific and fun build I have taken my Mage all the way to soul Lviv 232 and I am killing Bosses in less than 5 hits in NG++
This build is amazing robison ur a genius. i havent tried it but ive seen someone invade me with it and they 2 shotted me with cystal soul spear. Luckilly, on PS3 the build isnt common. ive learned how to combat it but still really hard to kill. ur really good this build shud be the best on the list. btw test out some of my builds