Is dark magic really overpowered, or is how people use it overpowered?

I use dark magic for my build, I don't use pursuers and I don't use rings or mage armour to give it a boost and it doesn't seem too overpowered to me. I actually find it quite underpowered compared to spells like crystal soul spear. I use beatresses catalyst. I initially started using it because I think it looks so much cooler than regular magic and it fits the theme of my build.

So my question is, is dark magic really overpowered? Or is how people use it overpowered? It does annoy me that if I use it in a dual, sometimes I get immediately double teamed, people can be such ******* really.... When I use dark bead it really doesn't do too much damage either, at the most I get 500.

What's your int? You don't really count if you're not trying to make it strong. Any spell is going to be weak if you have low int and using a bad catalyst.

But unfortunately, most mages are wearing bellowing dragon crest ring, crown of dusk, logans catalyst, and has 40-50 int.


Plus it's still spammable as crap and hard to dodge with lag.

Are all your beads hitting? I can't believe Dark Bead is maxing out at 500 damage.

I have 50 int.

what catalyst? oolacile? that one doesn't scale with int, get the normal catalyst or logans for better results.

Beatresses catalyst .

it is as strong as other toptier magic (wog, black flame) imo. if used as complementing tools those are perfectly fine. if you put lag, magic dmg boosting items and dirty tricks like lockoff unblockable wog in the mix it soon gets really, really strong. not unbeatable, but it is kinda frustrating to die to unblockable wogs or laggy dark magic. but: it's in the game, deal with it!

Dark Magic isn't overpowered at all, it just makes mages viable in PvP without much skill, while beforehand a dedicated mage had to have an extreme amount of practice and skill to go toe to toe with better PvPers.

I don't see coffee addicts as a problem. I've been killed by melee spammers before too until I adapted.

xenon_nobelium wrote:it is as strong as other toptier magic (wog, black flame) imo. if used as complementing tools those are perfectly fine. if you put lag, magic dmg boosting items and dirty tricks like lockoff unblockable wog in the mix it soon gets really, really strong. not unbeatable, but it is kinda frustrating to die to unblockable wogs or laggy dark magic. but: it's in the game, deal with it!

I agree that magic is perfectly fine without the massive amount of damage boosting equipment that is in the game. However, saying, "but: it's in the game, deal with it!" tends to seem a little redundant when people say that. Yes, it's in the game. Which means that people obviously have to handle other people abusing it. But, that doesn't necessarily clear those spells/whatever of being blatantly unbalanced. Also, I can't seem to understand when people say that there are counters to everything. No, there aren't any "counters" so to speak. Just equally abusive abilities that don't put every other weapon on equal standing.

For example, If Dark Souls had 2 guns, and people asked what to use to counter it. They'd typically respond back with, "Just use the other gun." While yes, one gun could be better than the other, it doesn't essentially deescalate the equipment's standing in power.

Ghadis_God wrote:Dark Magic isn't overpowered at all, it just makes mages viable in PvP without much skill, while beforehand a dedicated mage had to have an extreme amount of practice and skill to go toe to toe with better PvPers.

A weapon not needing skill to use is a major sign of it being unbalanced. Mages needed to have patience and timing. That was what made them different so to speak. Well, that and that magic was essentially balanced because there is no surefire way to block magic damage. Also, magic has excellent range and a wide range of applications. If close quarters wasn't your strong point as a mage, you still had access to magic scaling weapons or buffs.

"while beforehand a dedicated mage had to have an extreme amount of practice and skill to go toe to toe with better PvPers." That statement doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Since you said that it takes an extreme amount of skill to go head to head with better PvPers. I mean, isn't that kind of a given fact? Also, what do you mean by an extreme amount of practice and skill to use them properly? Isn't that exactly what you have to do with melee weapons too? :|




By the way, if I come off as harsh, that was purely unintentional. And I apologize ahead of time.

First, that is not a relevant distinction. Nothing is overpowered if its user isn't trying to get a decent effect out of it (and with beatrix catlyst and no damage boosting gear, you're not.) Its the ability to use something in way "x" or to do thing "y" that makes it overpowered.

Second, its fine. Force (yes force) takes 12 faith and deflects dark magic, if you're having problems with dodging it.

Mages still need patience and timing. Magic spam is deflected, dodged, roll r1'd or roll bs'd, and "ease of use" in no way translates to "OP."

What ghadis was saying is that for a pure int caster to reliably beat you in 1.05, the pure caster had to be a great deal better than you. If there was not a significant skill-gap, it was extremely unlikely the mage was going to win (excluding the odd 30 foot wide CSS caused by lag)

But there is a counter to everything. Any particular choice made can be responded to in a favorable manner.

I also like to point out that balance is never truly achieved so the question becomes if an item or technique is gamebreaking bad. WoG seemed so at first to me. Then I learned the tell, the distance and also that Skarekrow Tree Descendants can actually slap gankers from outside WoG range.

Ultra Greatswords seemed so at first to me too until I learned distance (again), speed, etc.

Dark Magic seems to be at first too until you learn the parameters it follows. I've barely done any PvP since the DLC came out and already have a tactic or two that I've learned. I still get my rear handed to me by it but that went for everything that used to be new to me.

So really the question isn't is it balanced, I can cite examples of unbalanced mechanics all over the place....the easiest one is

in case you're interested:

But it's really about being near unstoppable. In my experience, I have yet to see anything so close to unstoppable in this game that I would call it a problem.

experience with a from game that is unbalanced to a problematic degree:

Forum Pirate wrote:First, that is not a relevant distinction. Nothing is overpowered if its user isn't trying to get a decent effect out of it (and with beatrix catlyst and no damage boosting gear, you're not.) Its the ability to use something in way "x" or to do thing "y" that makes it overpowered.

I completely agree with you on that.

Forum Pirate wrote:
Mages still need patience and timing. Magic spam is deflected, dodged, roll r1'd or roll bs'd, and "ease of use" in no way translates to "OP."

Yes, you do indeed need patience and timing. So do most other combat styles. And yes, while you can certainly roll BS or dodge the magic attempt, that doesn't exactly work. Since you could just say that you should just roll BS or dodge any attack in the whole game.

Also, in a way ease of use can somewhat translate to being OP. However, that entirely depends on your definition of ease of use. For example, if weapon 'A' made the player go through 3 different button combinations/whatever to do an attack for 1000 damage, while weapon 'B' just had you press 1 button for that same damage and speed, which weapon is certainly better? (By the way, I don't mean that the 3 button attack thing was a combo. What I mean is that you have to press 3 buttons at once to just do that attack.)

Forum Pirate wrote:
What ghadis was saying is that for a pure int caster to reliably beat you in 1.05, the pure caster had to be a great deal better than you. If there was not a significant skill-gap, it was extremely unlikely the mage was going to win (excluding the odd 30 foot wide CSS caused by lag)

I'm well aware of that part of what he said. What I mean is that why would the mage need more skill? All I'm hearing is that the mage would need more skill, but I'm not getting any concrete examples.

skarekrow13 wrote:
I also like to point out that balance is never truly achieved so the question becomes if an item or technique is gamebreaking bad. WoG seemed so at first to me. Then I learned the tell, the distance and also that Skarekrow Tree Descendants can actually slap gankers from outside WoG range.

Certainly. There has never been a 'true' balance and there possibly won't be for some time. But, that necessarily doesn't discount any slightly overpowered weapons for being unimportant.
And yes, WoG isn't a perfect spell. But it certainly is a better choice than most others, which makes it OP.

And yes, I get the point about weapons being better than others. They should essentially be equal though(I'm well aware that they never will be), considering situations, damage and whatnot. It's not the question of whether or not they have it, it's that they most certainly have it, so why is it better, and how can that be improved upon? And yes, all classes have access to moderately good weapons. However, why should a Zweihander be better than the other weapons of it's class? Or why is a certain weapon class better than the others?

Fine I'll give concrete examples. Know how many times I've been hit by HCSM? Twice. 1, because they were invisible, 1 because I was Twop'd.

Know how many times I've been hit by CSS? 12. 3 twopped, 5 in ganks, 2 unlocked and 2 that were made 30 feet wide by lag.

I have an int build without dark magic. Know who I hit with regular magic? Fatrollers and people who try to straffe bs me. Thats it. Even then, they usually survive the hit, soaking it with the crest shield or havels shield. WTF is the point of having 250 defense, 40 poise and 1000 hp, if the power that made such sacrifices necessary is freaking impossible to hit with? It doesn't track well enough, isn't fast enough and is too easily punished.

Dark magic is more what regular magic was supposed to be in the first place (and is in pve.) High powered, moderately difficult to avoid projectile attacks, at the cost of durability and melee damage.

If everything is roughly equal it ruins the PvE experience. Magic is easier to see with this since getting the top weapons is really just knowing where they are for the most part but the idea is the same.

My first playthrough I got soul arrow pretty early. Like everyone I'm sure. I toyed with it, woulda used it more if I wasn't a melee/bow user. But once I got soul spear, in PvE, there was no need for Soul arrows, they became a backup if I ran out of spears. That's important to PvE because part of the fun is progressing and feeling like your character is growing. With Magic, it's learning more effective spells. Your character has learned, evolved, etc. and is therefore better. That feels good. Weapons are the same way. I enjoyed finding new weapons immensely and that would always lead to testing the moveset. Hitting some hollows with it, etc. Even if I didn't like it better than what I had (and I stayed with the broadsword most of the game with a quick Drake sword stint) I enjoyed the possibility that this new weapon would make me stronger, better etc.

That's why I hope to God that they don't make things entirely balanced. I want there to be a thrill with every new thing that it might be better for me.

Again, how this translates to PvP is going to be entirely different and of course still means things aren't balanced. My personal definition of overpowered is when something is so unbalanced that it creates a near sure victory, with a loss only through sheer luck or a horrid mistake by the user. Some things are easier to be good at I suppose. For this game, Dark Magic is the thing people have started gravitating too (at the moment). I still don't consider it to be so one sided that it's "over"powered or gamebreaking. Just because something is, in your words, "a better choice" than something else, doesn't make it "over"powered. And I agree. Some things are better choices than others.

The best example of a "balanced" world of competition to contrast my point is NASCAR. There are such strict limitations on what can and can't be used that the cars are near identical with small tweaks. So imagine a Dark Souls where your choices boiled down to the "Gray set of Elite Knight Armor" or the "Blue set of Elite Knight" armor (everyone's chassis is the same specs). Your choice of shields is either the Crest Shield or the Dragon Crest Shield (some parts allow for a tweak). Since weapons and magic are so critical to the competition (like an engine) those don't even get cosmetic tweaks and must be identical or near so. Maybe one sword could have a slightly larger handguard. The good news is that by removing the bulk of in game items and spells, there'll be plenty of coding left for decals to put on your Elite Knight Armor.

Lastly, I'm givng you a +1 for disagreeing in a calm and rational manner. I would like to encourage that in others (otherwise I wouldn't have explained it)

when i summon a phantom to help with a boss and they waltz in and one shot the thing with dark bead, i would call it OP as ***.

besides when gankers switch from giant/havel armour, lighting zwei and hornet ring to giant/havel armour, tin crystal cat., faery ears and dark bead, you know that it's got to be OP, broken or both.

No, you know that their old gear got nerfed, so they found new gear thats easy to use.

I could do the same thing with a melee build as well, any of the heavyier weapons (catylist)+dragon roar( dusk crown)+pw (pw) +RTSR (bdcr).

Same number of boosts and everything.

Forum Pirate wrote:Fine I'll give concrete examples. Know how many times I've been hit by HCSM? Twice. 1, because they were invisible, 1 because I was Twop'd.

Know how many times I've been hit by CSS? 12. 3 twopped, 5 in ganks, 2 unlocked and 2 that were made 30 feet wide by lag.

I have an int build without dark magic. Know who I hit with regular magic? Fatrollers and people who try to straffe bs me. Thats it. Even then, they usually survive the hit, soaking it with the crest shield or havels shield. WTF is the point of having 250 defense, 40 poise and 1000 hp, if the power that made such sacrifices necessary is freaking impossible to hit with? It doesn't track well enough, isn't fast enough and is too easily punished.

Having them block it is fine. Besides, those are basically the two best shields for defending against magic damage (or damage in general). Blocking magic with any other shield isn't an amazing thing to do though.

The slight tracking that spells do have at least helps a little bit. Also, what do you mean that it doesn't fire fast enough? Just use the weaker version of the spell. Or get high Dex (low SLs can't handle that though...) Magic isn't quite so hard to hit with. If you don't want to rely on it's homing ability too much just unlock and fire at em. It also shouldn't be too easily punishable, since the whole point of magic is to keep your distance. It's true though, magic is harder to hit with than melee attacks. But once magic does hit, it's hits hard (often too hard.) Which is why people can afford to use it sparingly.

I don't know what SL you're talking about, but this build seems to be perfectly fine in terms of defense and HP.
http://mmdks.com/1gqb

Forum Pirate wrote:
Dark magic is more what regular magic was supposed to be in the first place (and is in pve.) High powered, moderately difficult to avoid projectile attacks, at the cost of durability and melee damage.

I mean no offense by this statement, but how do you know what magic was supposed to be? High powered is fine, but difficult to dodge? I disagree. While yes, magic certainly has the flaw of low usage (which is why I prefer the old mana system.) Low durability still shouldn't be a problem though, since if you want to use a lot of spells, you can just use weaker versions of them. Also, at the cost of melee damage? Er, isn't that kind of the point of it being magic? :|

Personally, I wish there was more variety with spells. Most of them hit or cast the same way, which might be why they're decently easy to dodge.

skarekrow13 wrote:(too big to quote... )

Weapons get better as you upgrade them. But, magic grows through stat investment (melee weapons do too, but more so for magic), different catalysts and the spells that you can get (the uses of them.) Heck, in some cases, regular Soul Arrow out matches Soul Spear (it's number of uses.) That gives it a bit of balance in PvE.

I understand where you're coming from with the whole NASCAR example. However, it doesn't always have to be that way. Balance is limited to the developers imagination. Such as durability, range, damage, speed, stamina usage or any number of other things. While I do believe that certain weapons should be better in certain situations or against other weapons, they don't necessarily have to be better overall.




Lastly, thanks for that. I enjoy discussing things a lot. But, more than often, the discussion can become quite ugly.

Forum Pirate wrote:I could do the same thing with a melee build as well, any of the heavyier weapons (catylist)+dragon roar( dusk crown)+pw (pw) +RTSR (bdcr).

Same number of boosts and everything.

sure gankers and housewives can do that, but they don't. i wonder why? oh right, because it's so much easier to use dark bead.

EDIT … i guess my point is, if you want to know what the cheap, broken or op tactics are in a game, look to what the majority of gankers are using and you'll likely find your answer.

Its evidenced by its function in PvE. There's no garuntee of course, but it strongly suggests it (most notably against the NPC phantoms)

They fire plenty fast, they don't move fast enough to justify so little tracking, or track well enough to justify their speed, or have a large enough AoE to justify the current state.


Your examples magic is underpowered, rarely will they 0hko, they will probably have trouble 2 or 3hkoing unless every bead/orb hits. http://mmdks.com/1gqs is more accurate and effective example. It also suffers in defense. 300 is mediocre defense. (I was refering to SL 80 originally)

Nybbles wrote:

Forum Pirate wrote:I could do the same thing with a melee build as well, any of the heavyier weapons (catylist)+dragon roar( dusk crown)+pw (pw) +RTSR (bdcr).

Same number of boosts and everything.

sure gankers and housewives can do that, but they don't. i wonder why? oh right, because it's so much easier to use dark bead.

EDIT … i guess my point is, if you want to know what the cheap, broken or op tactics are in a game, look to what the majority of gankers are using and you'll likely find your answer.

Wrong again. First, they probably aren't into the meta enough to realise that such physical power is easily attainable.

Second, that its so common in ganks is because its so effective IN GANKS. A decent spear or rapier user will wreck and would always have wrecked any amount of zweihander spam in a 1v1, but in a 1v3 its much, much more difficult to deal with so gankers loved the crap out of it.

Forum Pirate wrote:Its evidenced by its function in PvE. There's no garuntee of course, but it strongly suggests it (most notably against the NPC phantoms)

They fire plenty fast, they don't move fast enough to justify so little tracking, or track well enough to justify their speed, or have a large enough AoE to justify the current state.


Your examples magic is underpowered, rarely will they 0hko, they will probably have trouble 2 or 3hkoing unless every bead/orb hits. http://mmdks.com/1gqs is more accurate and effective example. It also suffers in defense. 300 is mediocre defense. (I was refering to SL 80 originally)

How fast should they be then? Or how good should their homing abilities be? Personally, I find them quite good as they are. Since not having a whole lot of homing allows for some neat lock off aiming. Also, it allows for you to aim at where the opponent is going to be, not where they currently are.

I'm also not entirely sure how my example was wrong. The heavier melee weapons can KO in a few hits, while so can the more powerful magic attacks. Not everything needs to OHKO or do obscene damage. Also, the example that you showed had one of the optional trade offs that magic has access to. If more damage is your thing, do that. If not, stay with the 'mediocre' damage. I mean, that build that you showed practically traded 50% HP for 50% damage. Doesn't that seem like a fair trade off?

Also, what should the builds defense actually be at? As far as I'm concerned, 300 seems good enough for a decent poise fast rolling build.

I think I'll make a mage without Dark magic or any of the magic Spears. I'd like to test it's viability for myself.
http://mmdks.com/1gqx

350 is the diminishing returns point. Anything below that is akin to going in with a +15 uchi at 30 dex. Functional, but inefficient. Better off going another way, if possible.

Heavier weapon stunlock, bs, aren't limited by cast number, have roll attacks and running attacks and power attacks. In short, they have far more variety and the range is a non issue as long range magic is even less accurate than it is at close range.

One can simply walk sideways, no need to roll, to avoid a hcsm at any range except point blank (we're talking within shortsword reach.) The same can be said of CSS, though its not quite as bad. (also not the case with heavy weapons except at the far edge of their reach) The projectiles should either be wide enough, home well enough or move fast enough that this is risky at best, especially locked off, but as is its pathetic, lock off or not.

Pursuiers is HCSM done right (one of the ways it could be done right anyways)

(it would have somewhat higher HP if I optomised the gear)

In short, reliability and variety are the problems with standard magic. Not enough of either, not for the risk involved (in the form of low defense, lower (than optimal for a STR or DEX build without sacrifices) hp and limited casts.