magic v.s melee

in all my fights with and against phantoms the highest damages iv'e seen have seen dealt with magic, not melee... i hit the ng 4 kings with a +15 demonsgreat axe at 58 str and do 450 dmg with lightning resin on... my mage buddy casts one spell and does 1100 dmg... wtf! why can't i do that with my axe! why no melee attack bossting ring or hat like magic has.. almost all buffs that melee can use also work for magic! red tear stone, power within, dragon roar, all boost magic too and magic already has dusks crown and the bellowing dragon ring! all melee has is the hornet ring and that thing kills fun pvp! plus in pve not everything can be BS'd but you can blast magic at any target... i know magic can be dodged fairly easily but the sheer damage potential is not fair imo.
any suggestions on ways to boost my melee damage on things that can't be BS'd and buffs like slb requre too much faith, any way to really buff pure melee?

Magic has its own downsides.

For one, if you're not wearing the bellowing dragoncrest ring and the crown of dusk, you're only gimping yourself. And having that ring equipped means you're missing out on the potential benefits of another ring.

Also, magic has a limited number of castings, so you need to be careful how you use them.

Finally, spells are retarded in this game. They like to miss. Big targets too. You can miss a boss because you were just too far; or they spinned just so causing your spell to go through them; or they're engaged in a grab attack at the moment so they're invulnerable, so your spell goes through them; or a certain part of them is invulnerable to magic (Smough's hammer is excellent for blocking magic, and the Giant's shields too). There's a lot of reasons your spell will miss.

Also, Mages are generally more vulnerable than other character types. One of the reasons for that is because of the aforementioned ring and equip scenario, where you need to have certain ones equipped, which limits you in possibilities for defensive solutions. Another reason is that you need to invest in the Attunment stat, which doesn't have any side defensive or offensive benefits.

All in all, it's true that magic does the highest damage in the game, but it does come at a price. Unless you're overleveled, you'll be more vulnerable as a mage. And once you're pushing a few +s in your NG and getting along in the triple digit levels, you should already have started investing in the Int branch anyways, since it really becomes the only way to still do substantial damage on bosses.

sigh, figured as much thanks for the reply... once i boost health then i guess my str build will boost int for cmw or maybe faith since thats higher...

Take a mage to 50 Int, 32 End, 40 Vit, and then grab about 4 Att slots. Max out a couple of your favorite weapons along the Enchanted path. Take 16 strength to wield the Eagle shield. With this combo, you'll be able to trade damage with any melee build.

Essentially, this is where the advantage/disadvantage starts. Since you probably can't pull off the cartwheeling tank build, and won't have poise, you'll need to treat it as a dex build. Go for full mobility. And use weapons that can attack from behind guard, like estocs or spears. Make them chase you...hit them for small amounts of damage. As they start to get frustrated, they will make mistakes. They'll chase after the big hit to stun lock you. This is when you start using homing crystal soulmass, and defile their day.

Also, use the Moonlight Greatsword, as it hits for all magic damage...nobody's ever prepared for that. Look through these forums and you'll see all kinds of respect for the battlemage build for these reasons. Good casters are head and shoulders above everyone else who plays this game. Period. Not everyone can get the timing down, but the ones who do are a force to be reckoned with.

for me actually its kind of a nice balance

Meele weapons will not do 1000 damage a hit because they're faster to use than any magic out there,and are not so easy to dodge as magic is

meele is multiple hits and i uses up your stamina,the maximun damage you can get to is by doing multiple hits you'll never get 1000 with one single hit unless...

Magic doesn't use up your stamina instead it doesn't deplete it at all giving you time to roll but the spells are easy to dodge
but if you hit its very nice damage

or if it lags out and the guy gets hit when he clearly evaded it


lets do the math shall we?

alright from personall experience

a 15+ claymore with sunlight blade buff it does around 300-400 damage a hit or even more

now lets see with max stamina (which you get when you get your endurance to 40) you can swing a normal greatsword 4 times 400 x4
1600 damage!

so yeah meele weapons are not powerfull on one only hit they're powerfull with multiple hits!

Actually, the award for the highest amount of damage possible goes to melee users, not magic users. Melee users can backstab and riposte, which is the pvp melee equivalent of hitting with a CSS. Check out Caroso's videos and posts for a great example of power-hitting with a melee weapon.

For the record, CSS is also rather hard to time correctly.

not if you're always strafing when you see someone with a staff
i know i always do...

well scimitar is a "slashing" weapon so if someone that doesn't have any "slash" resistance will take a lot of damage from a katana or a scimitar specially with sunlight blade
or the guy just had a very weak lightning defense

since sunlight is lightning stat so yeah

i would be doing 600 with one swing of my claymore with it if the guy didn't had good lightning defense

guess the enemies i was fighting were wearing the ring that gives lightning resistance

still scimitar has to compensate not stun locking i guess so its the same thing

of course when you're attacking you'll be attacked theres no doubt about that so i guess if you don't kill the guy on that combo you'll be smacked in the face a few times

Greatswords to have less damage have to be able to stunlock the guy

so both of those are kill in one combo so why bother discussing?

i know the advantages in pvp of melee, as magic is easy to dodge, but im talking pve against ng+ or+++ bosses with ungodly health bars.