Windalf The Mage | Dark Souls 3 Wiki

Windalf The Mage
LVL	VIG	ATT	END	VIT
120+	20	24	20	20
STR	DEX	INT	FTH	LCK
16	25	60	12	12

This is a player-created Build for Dark Souls 3

Created by Eluciddator

Edit: Updated some stuff since this build is already 3 years old. Also added a section about the new spells in the DLC's and a mention about Pestilent Mist. 

Build Information

• Build Name: "Windalf The Mage"
• Real Name: Kalathun
• Build Level: 120+
• Build Gender: Male
• Build Age: Young
• Build Origin: Sorcerer
• Burial Gift: To your liking
• Build Focus: PvE
• Build Main Stat(s): Int & Att with a bit of Dex

Build Equipment

• ·         Right Hand:

• R-H1: Crystal Sage's Rapier

• R-H2: Moonlight Greatsword  

  ·         Left Hand:

•  L-H1: Sage's Crystal Staff or Court Sorcerer's Staff

• L-H2: Target Shield  

• L-H3: Darkmoon Longbow  

  ·         Armor: Sorcerer Set or anything you feel comfortable with as long as you are under 70% weight

•      Rings: (Explained at the end)

   

  Build Strategy

  This build is intended for those who want to play a sorcerer and might want to also try something versatile. Build can be approached from different ways depending on the player preference, you can rely solely on strong spells or use a rapier to spam on your enemies in the face then back-step and cast some fast spells, or use the powerful Raw Astora Straight Sword imbued with your own magic.  Astora Straight Sword has been nerfed and infusions aren't as strong as they used to be. Rapier is definitely better or the Estoc which has horizontal swings when doing strong attacks.

  You want to aim for the sharp cap (60 Int) so you take out the most of the Sage's Crystal Staff and at the same time your melee combat is not powerless.

  Your weapon of choice its completely up to you. Another versatile and strong weapon is the Astora Greatsword when crystal infused. Both Astoran swords (Greatsword and Raw Straight sword) do big amounts of damage, the greatsword (which can be obtained kind of early in the game) can be used to replace the Moonlight Greatsword since skipping most of the game to get it as soon as you can is not recommended. 

   

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  Early recommendations:

  Sorcerer's early game can be rough, the weapon given (Mailbreaker) is not the best since your shield isn't a parrying shield. For Gundyr it's recommended to stick on your Soul Arrow (not Heavy Soul Arrow) while rolling. 

  As soon as you get the Rapier weapon (Rapier) it's highly recommended to infuse it with raw (or fire, thou you might want raw to infuse it with magic weapon later) and swap it instead of your Mailbreaker. 

  I would recommend buying the Magic Weapon spell from Yoel even if it is a bit more expensive than waiting for Orbeck. This will allow you to increase the damage your raw weapon has and since Rapier had the exact minimal stats you get as a Sorcerer from the start you don't need to pump stats on Str/Dex to wield it.

  Your initial staff should be good enough around the game until you get the Sage's Crystal Staff, still Heretic's Staff (which is obtained before the Sage Boss) can be useful when paired with Farron Flashsword for long and fast attacks. Witchtree Branch has the extra of faster cast (same as when you have the Sage Ring) which can be useful if you want to equip an extra ring (They're mutually exclusive, meaning their buff does not stack).

  Remember to keep under 70% equipment load to have a normal roll animation.

  Pumping Vigor to 15 is recommended in case you mess up a bit so you won't die from 1 hit. Sorcerer's defenses are bad and you want to avoid getting hit before you can even cast a spell or use your Rapier to stun lock your enemy.

  DO NOT FORGET TO GIVE ORBECK AT LEAST 1 SCROLL BEFORE DEFEATING THE ABYSS WATCHERS BOSS! He will dissapear permanently if you defeat the Watchers without giving him a scroll, leaving you without your main source of sorcery spells.

  For your early (before killing your first Lord of Cinder), you want to swap your Soul Arrow and Heavy Soul Arrow for their "Great" versions as soon as you can. After 15 Vigor aiming to lvl up both Int and Att is a must, you want at least 23 Int and 18 Att (with Saint's or Deep ring to reach 4 slots) so you can have these spells:

  Great Soul Arrow
  Great Heavy Soul Arrow
  Farron Flashsword / Soul Greatsword
  Great Magic Weapon (or just magic weapon if you haven't found the upgraded version).
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  Middle game

  Here is where you can start to decide how you want to use your mage. It'll mostly depend of your weapon of choice.

  Astora's Greatsword infused with Crystal is more focused on strong spells from afar while using the sword on close quarters, you should aim for 16Str & 18Dex to be able to use the sword. Thankfully the scaling it gets from infused is so strong you won't have to worry on pumping stats over the minimun required.

  Crystal Sage's Rapier can be used for Stunlocking and it can also be paired with fast spells like the Great Soul Arrow, Farron Darts, Farron Flashsword, or a parrying shield like the Target Shield. Aim for 13Str & 18Dex as a minimun. Since the CS Rapier does also scale on Int your damage won't be low, and it has the plus of 50 extra item discovery.

  Astora's Straight Sword, while Raw Infused, is one of the strongest  a good weapon in the game and a very versatile one. Paired with Great Magic Weapon buff and any kind of offensive spell (be it fast or slow spells) can be a pain for your enemies and it'll help you stay alive. Only downside is you'll have to pump some points on Faith, thankfully it only requires 10 Str and 10 Dex (and the class already has the minimum required Dex).

  Or you can stay with your Raw infused Rapier and pump points on Int, Attunement and Endurance. (endurance can be lvled up whenever you feel you need it, if you think you need more stamina to play comfortably lvl it. Since the Rapier can still be buffed with Great Magic weapon you shouldn't have a problem staying the way you are.

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  End game

  Your aim is to get:

• Soul Spear  (and later the improved version, Crystal Soul Spear )

• Crystal Magic Weapon  
  Which require that you get the Crystal Scroll (Or Logan's for the normal Soul Spear).

  Another remarkable spell with a lot of power, but slow to cast and high cost, is Soul Stream.  

  After getting this, you should be cutting your enemies in two with a single spell since the damage they do is ridiculous.

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  Recommended spells

  Melee:

• Farron Flashsword (for fast combos)

• Soul Greatsword (for areas with crowded enemies, not recommended for invasors or pvp)
  
  Offensive ranged

• Crystal Soul Spear (or it's weaker version until you get it)

• Great Soul Arrow

• Soul Stream (Mostly for narrow areas where your enemy can not dodge)
  
  Buffs

• Crystal Magic Weapon (start from Magic weapon and swap for the stronger versions as you get them)

• Great Magic Shield (this one is not needed, but can be useful for some bosses where you plan on using your shield since the amount of damage it absorbs is ridiculous. Recommended if your weapon can't be infused or you don't plan to do so or you will use a resin.)

  Special mention:

• Pestilent Mist: It is worth mentioning this spell does damage depending on the targets total HP. This makes it really useful against high hp bosses. Also, when paired with the Slumbering Dragoncrest Ring and Hidden Body (aside from bosses) it can help you kill some mini bosses or hard enemies (coff coff Havel coff coff) without even being seen at all. I did not add this spell before because I honestly hate waiting for the spell to chump away the enemies hp and I rather move and fight but it is worth mentioning since it can match some people's way of play (and does a lot of damage to Darkeater Midir, more so if paired with a double caster pestilent mist thanks to phantoms).
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  Rings

  You can use the Young & Bellowing Dragon Rings at the same time, both of them stack. It'll be mostly useful when you are using the Sage's Crystal Staff since the damage will be raised 40% plus another 40% if you use the Steady Chant weapon art.

  Sage's ring will improve your speed cast and will be very useful for those Soul Spears or Heavy Soul arrows unless you're using the Witchtree Branch Staff.

  If you feel confident to cast a ton from afar without getting in danger the Dusk Crown Ring may be helpful to cast more spells.

  If by any chance you want to use more than 4 spells slots you might want to get the Darkmoon Ring which gives 2 slots and it is not that hard to get since it only requires rank 1 with Blade of the Darkmoon.

  Wood Grain Ring can be useful once you get the Moonlight Greatsword so your special attacks won't break your weapon too fast.

  Magic Clutch Ring is useful if you also know you won't be getting hit in the face, since it will increase the damage you get (as if you weren't a bit weak already).

  Hornet Ring is useful if you aim for some parrying style mage, it'll increase your damage by a ton when used right.

  And last but not least, Chloranthy Ring can be really helpful so you don't go "oom" too long on stamina, helps to stay ready for combat.

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  Weapon explanation

  Astora's Greatsword is one of the most versatile weapons in the game. When it's infused to scale in any kind of magic (be it dark, lighting, fire [Chaos]  or crystal) the scaling it gets is just too good. Being S scaling at +10 and with a weight of 8.0 (which is rather low for a Ultra Greatsword) you can get out the most of it easily.

  Astora's Straight Sword has 322 301 damage when Raw infused, and it can still be buffed with your magic weapon buff to pump that damage to the heavens. It does not use a lot of stamina making and has fast swing making it good for close quarter combat when needed. Now, after the nerf, is is better to stay with an infusionless Astora Straight Sword while using your own magic to pump the damage higher if you are more onto horizontal swing swords with fast movesets.

  Sage's Crystal Rapier has A scaling on Int at +5, can stun lock your enemies and raises your item discovery.

  While Court Sorcerer's Staff is a really good staff, I prefer the Sage's Crystal staff since it has the strongest Steady Chant weapon art making your offensive spells stronger than when you use the Court Staff. (Still doing some testing, Court Staff is better on an overall but the buff you get from SC staff is stronger making offensive spells better when cast on it).

  The target shield has the highest block of all the parrying shield and also the extended animation for parrying. When infused with the Great Magic Shield it blocks all damage too.

  Moonlight Greatsword can be a great weapon, the AR it has is stronger than most Greatswords and also deals magic damage which tends to be "stronger" since enemies defenses to it are lower than physical damage. The weapon art it has is rather funny to use and doest cost durability instead of FP when fully charged.

• The Darkmoon Longbow is just for the funs, sometimes you might get a bit bored or something and want to try something else. Since the Darkmoon Longbow scales with int your damage won't be that low AND the weapon art it has does magic damage! Yikes!

   

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  ALTERNATIVE START

  There is an alternative start for this build and does not need to be with the Sorcerer class. 

  The assassin class can be rather useful, has good Att and Int as a starter, already has the same staff as the Sorcerer and can ease your early game with the Estoc since it is a great weapon when Raw infused. Only downside is that you need to go get the mage spells (Soul Arrow & Heavy Soul Arrow) and you have less Att than a Sorcerer as a starter.

   

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  DLC'S SORCERIES 

  The DLC's added 4 new spells. Ashes of Ariandel added both Frozen Weapon and Snap Freeze while The Ringed City added Great Soul Dregs and Old Moonlight.

• Frozen weapon is just a weapon but to apply frostbite and on personal opinion is not worth it since there already are plenty of weapons that can be a source of frostbite (A straight sword, a curved sword, a rapier, 2 scythes, a heavy mace and also we get a spell...) it just seems like a  waste of a spell slot. More so since the best way to use frostbite is with fire damage available to reapply the debuff as soon as possible and this is a high int build from which the weapon buff does not benefit.

• As for Snap Freeze, it is not a bad spell however you still need a fire damage source to reapply the debuff for it be worth the spell slot.

• Great Soul Dregs is a int/faith spell, a dark spell, and as such it is best suited for a pyro/mage build (or "hexer"). The damage it has with Izalith's staff is not half bad with a decent amount of int/faith but definitely not suited for this build.

• Old Moonlight is a nice and funny spell and it basically does the same as the Moonlight Greatsword's strong attack so we could say you can use that for when you run out of durability on the greatsword. The damage it has is good, thankfully if has 2 hits, one from the blade per se and another one from the wave thrown. If you manage to hit the enemy with both of them it will do some nice damage.