Sorcerer is one of, if not the most played Dark Souls Remastered class amongst both new and veteran players alike. What makes this class such a fan favorite? How to effectively play this class? What builds to go for? All this and more will be answered in this guide the Sorcerer.
The starting 15 Intelligence and 15 Attunement make it the hands-down best class option for any kind of spellcasting build. Being able to output high damage from a distance, rather than having to time dodges and rolls up close, makes combat a lot more forgiving.
That’s why we’ve put together this ultimate guide to Sorcerer in Darks Souls Remastered.
How to Get Started as a Sorcerer
Picking Sorcerer in Dark Souls Remastered is a plug-and-play job. You pick and you’re off. The only thing you’ll have to worry about at the start of the game when you’re picking your class is what gift to choose.
The de-facto best starting gift in Dark Souls Remastered is the Master Key. This key lets you open certain doors and areas early, effectively bypassing portions of the game, or at least making them significantly easier to navigate.
Effective Sorcerer Combat
Despite Sorcerery combat primarily focusing on ranged magic attacks, effective gameplay is going to involve a healthy mix of spellcasting and melee combat using a magic weapon.
For the very start of the game, you should advantage of the Soul Arrow starting Sorcery as much as possible. While the Sorcerer’s Catalyst that you start with isn’t particularly powerful, it does grant you a lot more versatility in combat when compared to your Dagger and Shield.
If you feel comfortable enough to take melee engagements early on, you can choose to use your Soul Arrow to weaken targets from a distance before you engage them with your melee attacks.
Most Sorcerer players prioritize damage, meaning they end up squishier than something like a Knight. However, this tradeoff allows Sorcerers to output insane damage numbers from both a distance and up close with something like a Moonlight Greatsword.
This is done by pumping your Intelligence upwards of 50 and utilizing upgraded Sorceries like the Crystal Soul Spear. Alternatively, you can use Crystal Magic Weapon to massively buff something like a Balder Side Sword if you want to take melee fights.
Recommendations
These are some recommendations for the Sorcerer class:
- Regardless of your playstyle, you’ll want to get an Intelligence scaling weapon as soon as you can. This can be done by getting Rickert to upgrade an early-game weapon like the Longsword with Green Titanite Shards.
- While you’re dealing with Ricket, purchase another set of Soul Arrows and equip them to help lighten the early-game load.
- Unlock Griggs of Vinheim and get upgraded Soul Arrows.
- Unlock Logan to get access to more powerful mid-late game Sorceries, as well as Logan’s Catalyst.
Scaling your Sorcerer build throughout your playthrough calls for a bit more work than other classes purely because you need to worry about your spells. You need to upgrade them as well as acquire new ones.
Best Hybrid Sorcerer Build
This is a hybrid melee and range build for the Sorcerer class:
Attributes
- DEX – 40/45. Dexterity increases the casting speed of your Sorceries. Needless to say, the faster you cast, the more damage you deal.
- INT – 44. We’ve gone with 44 because it provides really solid damage while also giving us access to Crystal Soul Spear. You can level it up to 50 if you want.
- VIT – 40. To give yourself more chance to endure punishment.
- ATN – 19. To unlock an extra Sorcery slot.
- STR – 16: To meet the requirements of the Moonlight Greatsword.
- The rest of your points should go into Endurance.
Equipment and Armor
As we mentioned previously, our weapon of choice is the Moonlight Greatsword. Any experienced Sorcerery player will be able to tell you that it’s a staple of the class, but it’s far from your only option.
If you wanted to get technical, you could use a Longsword or Shortsword with Crystal Magic Weapon. This requires micromanagement in combat, but it’s possible to output more damage this way than simply using an Intelligence scaling weapon.
The only hard requirement we have for your equipment is using Logan’s Catalyst for its extra spell charges while also maintaining great damage.
Sorceries
- Crystal Soul Spear.
- Optional: Crystal Magic Weapon.
Now we’re on to the fun stuff. After all, why are you playing Sorcerer if not for all the awesome spells you get access to?
Our use case for Sorceries with this hybrid build is giving us range damage to soften up targets before we’re forced to engage them at close range. For that reason, our main Sorcery of choice is going to be Crystal Soul Spear. Replace your Soul Arrows as soon as possible with this for its better damage against late-game enemies.
Alternatively, if you’re not using a magic scaling weapon, the Magic Crystal weapon is a must-have to get your sword of choice to scale with a magic adjustment while it’s active.
Pure Sorcerer Build
Now onto a build that focuses solely on spells to dish out massive magical damage:
Attributes
- INT – 50. If we’re going to play a pure Sorcerer build, we should increase INT to squeeze more damage out of our spells, as well as gain access to White Dragon Breath.
- VIT- 45. Vitality is, more or less, the only defensive option for this build thus the heavy investment in VIT.
- DEX – 45. Since we are relying on spells primarily it is necessary to cast it swiftly.
- ATN – 19 to 23. Depending on how many spell slots you want you can increase ATN to 23 max.
The only real change with the previous build is how much one decides to invest into Endurance. A 1.5/1 or 2/1 VIT to END ratio is considered fairly optimal, but your Sorceries don’t actually consume stamina, so we’ve left this stat up to your discretion.
Equipment and Armor
You can either go for Logan’s Catalyst or the Tin Crystallization Catalyst.
As a pure Sorcerer, our goal is to hit as hard as we possibly can. We’re advising you to use the Bellowing Dragoncrest Ring for that reason. It’s also why the Tin Crystallization Catalyst is such a tempting choice. While it does halve your spell count, it’s going to make every Soul Spear hit like a nuke.
Once you have this build up and running, experiment with both to see what you think for yourself. If you can comfortably finish fights and areas with the Tin Catalyst, then it’s the better option. If you find yourself running out of charges, switch to Logan’s.
Sorceries
- Crystal Soul Spear.
- Homing Crystal Soulmass.
- Great Heavy Soul Arrow.
We’re keeping things simple here with the Crystal Soul Spear. It’s the best Sorcery in the game and will be your primary damage-dealing weapon. You can further round out your damage-dealing capabilities with both Homing Crystal Soulmass and Great Heavy Soul Arrow.
The three of these Sorceries combined should be more than enough to deal with any enemies you end up facing in PvE. If not, your 50 Intelligence gives you access to White Dragon Breath which, along with the rest of your arsenal, will be enough.
The Sorcerer is a spell-casting extraordinaire and we couldn’t stress the power of sorceries in Dark Souls Remastered. There are a few weapons that scale with INT so you can always opt for them for your melee needs but don’t discount the capabilities of spells.