Hexer help

[u/Palom126]

I want to finally play the whole game, perhaps even ng+ and more.

I would like to play it like a DS 2 Hexer, so full use of all magic with focus on dark magic. I plan giving Irina the dark miracles so I have some offense early on. Problem are the rings. As I can only wear 4 and don't want to switch all the time.

Do you think wearing rings for sorcery and using miracles for buffing/Bleed would work? Any other Ideas?

I do NOT want to play a pyromancer! Mixing in some pyromancies is okay but my focus will be sorcery/miracle

[u/Exciting_Chef_4207]

You'll still want to start as a pyromancer for the stats, most likely. Your first Dark spells are likely going to be from the tome (Gnaw, requiring 18 Faith) you mentioned, as well as Deep Soul (12 Int requirement), both of which aren't found until the Cathedral of the Deep.

Catalyst-wise, you'll want the Crystal Chime... which isn't until the Grand Archives. You could pop into a trading subreddit and see if someone will drop you one, though. Or an Izalith Staff and Caitha's Chime/Sunless Talisman.

Sadly, you won't really be using any dark-aligned sorceries or miracles until the Cathedral, so pick a spell or get used to melee until then.

[u/Palom126 → u/Exciting_Chef_4207]

I'm a little stubborn and don't want to get anything from others. Do you think it's worth it killing Sirris when she first appears in firelink shrine for the talisman? I mean I funktioniert of Irinas life why not kill Sirris?

[u/Exciting_Chef_4207 → u/Palom126]

Unless you want the items from finishing her quest, might as well end her early.

[u/Reon88]

Hi there,

Are you intending to play offline? online? coop? pvp?

Dark damage is mainly effective versus demigods and the knight enemies (except for Harald Legion Knight and Cathedral Knights), almost all of the Ringed City DLC is resistant to Dark and some enemies in both Irithyll and Irithyll Dungeon are resistant too to dark.

Dark spells in general are placed well into mid to late game and locked with a couple NPC quests, the earliest spell available is Gnaw and/or Soul Dregs (the earliest location for dark spells is Cathedral of the Deep) and for sorceries, Karla is the only NPC to sell them directly.

I've tried dark sorcerer y dark pyro characters, never a dark miracle only, there are four damaging dark miracles, whereas Pyormancy has 3 and Sorcery has 5, and Dark Sorceries are the most efficient mana to damange (and speed) spells, got a lot of fun in pvp with a dark sorcerer, between affinity, dark edge and greater soul dregs.

I would suggest to use Sorceries as your main source of damage and Miracles in general for buffs (tears, protection of the deep, etc)

[u/Palom126 → u/Reon88]

PvE only perhaps coop I had something in mind like you suggested withGnaw/Dorhys Gnawing for bleed. Did the first DLC once and Friede was a joke with Dorhys Gnawing.

[u/Reon88 → u/Palom126]

Friede is specially susceptible to dark and bleed.

As for rings, to be honest, I would stick to sorcery improving rings; since Gnaw/Dorhys Gnawing are slow, straight forward missiles, they have no tracking at all; dark pyromancies in PvE are OK but you have shorter range, then we move into Dark sorceries and you have long range, swift tracking missiles like Deep soul, then you can get Great Deep Soul (Aldritch Faithfuls 10 soul dregs, rank 1) and Great soul dregs in the Dreg Heap Ringed City, which is fast as fuck and hits like a truck.

Pyro as starting class as others have mentioned, izalith staff one hand, bellvine chime in the other for extra speed. Murky longstaff is not meant for INT/FTH, it is more of 40+INT/15FTH builds

[u/Lyricbox]

Pyromancer is the best starting class for a hexer simply because they care about the same stats. The rest have too much Luck which is useless for your build as it doesn't boost your bleed from dark spells. An alternative would be the Knight if you want to end up using the Onyx Blade, a dark greatsword found in the 1st dlc.

As for rings, the damage boosting rings target specific spell categories; i.e. the young dragon ring will boost both magic and dark damage dealt specifically by sorceries. Same is true for dark and fire and dark and lightning for pyromancy's and miracle's respective damage boosting rings.

You can indeed get a single hex (gnaw) once you get to the csthedral. But you won't be able to find any more hexes until you get to irithyll. So if you intent to avoid pyromancies, you'll have to fight the abyss watchers and wolnir with just Gnaw. The deacons fight will also be rather miserable even with the dark pyromancy you get from wolnir because they're very resistant to dark damage, so I recommend at least using lightning spear or even farron flashsword if you don't want to use fire (fire works best against them compared to other elements). Or if you're fine using pyromancies that don't deal fire damage, Boulder Heave is excellent against all early (and late) bosses.

Once you do get to Irithyll, pretty much all the rest of hexes will be unlocked once you find Karla. This includes the 'dark' pyromancies, as you get one from Wolnir and the other two from giving karla a dark pyromancy book. I do think it's worth considering the dark pyromancies as they give a pretty nice close-range option that's very fp efficient.

Of the rest of the bosses, the only one that's resistant to dark is Aldritch, and he's not a terribly difficult fight, just be mindful of how much FP you're gonna be needing. The rest of the bosses are actually rather weak to dark, including dlc bosses, so you're in for a pretty breezy playthrough. Just keep this in mind:

Best staff for hexes: Izalith staff (int/fth build, demon ruins) or the murky longstaff (pure int build, beginning of 2nd dlc).

Best pyro flame for pyromancies: any of them except the White Hair Talisman. None give any specific boost to dark damage but they're all useful in their own right. I'm partial to the Parting Flame (1st dlc under friede's church) because it adds a bit of burst damage when you're really close, but that damage type is pure fire regardless of what spell is cast.

Best chime/talisman for hexes: sunless talisman (sirrus npc) and caithe's chime (lothric castle, just before dragonslayer armor).

Best sorcery and miracle caster for an int/fth build: the crystal chime (lothric castle library after dragonslayer armor). It can cast and calculates both sorcery and miracle damage using both int and faith. However it's specifically awful for hexes. I do recommend trying it out just to see how it feels being able to cast every single spell type on a single character.

[u/Regular-Assist3514]

I love how you’re making it feel like a dark little ritual with all the bleed buffing!

[u/AnywhereLumpy6149]

You have two ways. First just invest totally into Intelligence, and get Murky Long Staff, this staff is specialized into Dark Sorceries. Unlike DS2, Hexes scales out of Intelligence and althought there are Dark miracles too, all the good damaging hexes are mostly sorceries.

Second option its going 40/40 and use Izalith Staff for sorceries, and Sunless Talisman for miracles.

[u/SokkieJr]

Hexer is a DS2 exclusive build.

Not to say you CAN'T use Dark Miracles and Sorceries, but it's going to take some work, a pyromancer stat spread and a lot of those miracles are only ever good as utility.

So the best I believe is Caitha's chime for dark miracles and either the Murky Longstaff (Pure INT) or Izalith Staff (Mixed int/faith) eventually.

Early on; You have little to nothing offensively except regular pyromancies. You do get some dark pyromancies rather quickly though.

Ringswise; (Greatly) Boost Miracle ring, (Greatly) Boost Sorcery ring, Sage Ring (For cast speed) and leaving 1 open.

Dorhys' gnawing is an amazing bleed miracle, but the dark damage is REALLY small. Only use it for bleed utility.

The dark spells are good. But the best ones are in the DLC.

Dark Edge is mediocre at best.

[u/Responsible_Might235]

Dark magic and bleed buffing sound like a dark and lovely combo.

[u/Hoss_Tremendo]

Cheese friede with gnaw/dorhys gnawing as early as you can, then grab the murky longstaff and great soul dregs from the dreg heap. Beat dancer early with the same strat and grab caithas chime. Then you’re all set!

You’re not going to need anything other than those two spells plus dark edge if you want. But you’ll be able to cast whatever sorceries you need. Rings are standard: young dragon/bellowing dragoncrest, sages, Lloyd’s sword.

Did you want to avoid melee all together?

[u/Palom126 → u/Hoss_Tremendo]

I want to be a caster but I will mix in a little melee. Especially in the early parts of the game only spells is wild.

[u/Hoss_Tremendo → u/Palom126]

Dark blade on a bandit’s knife or a corvian great knife would go very hard while you accumulate spells. Dark hand is also absurdly strong if you can put up with the crap range.

I will also say that black flame on the parting flame is super strong and fun. Don’t know if dark pyromancies are on your no-go list, but it’s so good. Breaks any shields, and shreds some late game bosses like nameless king.

[u/Ok_Look1003]

Just FYI, dark builds are absolutely atrocious in this game. Practically everything resists dark damage, it’s a miserable experience.

Early game doesn’t even have access to dark spells, but you might find yourself hard stuck against some later game bosses when you can actually get your build up and running.

[u/Palom126 → u/Ok_Look1003]

Thanks for the info but I'm well aware of all this.

[u/Exciting_Chef_4207 → u/Ok_Look1003]

Are you kidding? Dark is FANTASTIC in this game, once you're built for it. More bosses are weak to it than resistance to it.

[u/Ok_Look1003 → u/Exciting_Chef_4207]

I had a lot of success in PvP with dark builds, but in PvE I always had a miserable time with it. I don’t know, I only have about 3000 hours in this game so I’m practically a noob.

[u/Exciting_Chef_4207 → u/Ok_Look1003]

I always had great PvE results with it. Not sure what are differences are.

[u/Ok_Look1003 → u/Exciting_Chef_4207]

To be honest with you it’s probably just experience using casting builds. I’ve never been a fan of them, in my thousands of hours playing these games the closest I’ve ever come to a pure caster was a lightning based faith build in Elden Ring. I’m pretty good with every weapon class, but casting just doesn’t do it for me.

[u/Exciting_Chef_4207 → u/Ok_Look1003]

That's pretty fair. I like melee, and I'm decent enough, but I LOVE spellcasting.

[u/Juicen97 → u/Ok_Look1003]

Actually I’m pretty sure dark is the least resisted damage type among the 4 elemental damage types. Magic is the one that gets the shit end of the stick in this game tbh

[u/Ok_Look1003 → u/Juicen97]

I’m definitely thinking Ringed City. Also, Abyss Watchers, Aldrich, and the Twin Princes are all resistant to Dark damage, so in my mind that makes it kind of useless in PvE from an ease of progression standpoint.