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I'm playing as a pyromancer in Dark Souls and am still near the beginning of the game (In the Depths). However, I'm not really sure how to improve my character whenever I get a lot of souls (10k+ or so) from defeating a boss.

Should I level up and which attributes should I level? I mostly put them towards Vitality and Endurance, but it doesn't seem to help much (I'm around level 20 or so now).

I've seen suggestions about putting it towards gear, though what I find usually isn't any better than what I have now. I've upgraded my original axe a few times, although I think it's probably not a great weapon, but I haven't found anything with better damage yet.

I'm always tempted when I get a lot of souls to spend them immediately on levelling up rather than risk losing them. Am I making a mistake? How do I improve my chances in the game?

Joachim
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kyubiko
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6 Answers6

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If you are planning on leveling up a Pyromancer keep a few things in mind:

Pyromancy is not affected by any stats, even Intelligence. Your Pyromancy Flame weapon is directly upgraded at trainers at a later point in the game. So, in the mean time you should be upgrading stats that improve your survivability. Such as Vitality (more hit points) and Endurance (more stamina, equip load, defensive stats).

Even though you should never neglect Vitality, you should aim to cap Endurance at 40 points as soon as possible. At 40 points any additional Endurance won't contribute to your Stamina (green bar).

You should allocate points on Strength and Dexterity in order to meet the minimal weapon requirements to wield them.

Faith and Intelligence upgrade Sorceries and Miracles, so ignore them.

YellowMegaMan
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Pedro Mancheno
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    Actually it is affected by stats but not how you'd expect. Dexterity affects the casting speed of pyromancy. Video example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHfPcu_B0nQ – Shykin Feb 11 '13 at 19:37
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    there is also attunement, which allows you to carry more spells with you. – Dave Cousineau Oct 11 '16 at 22:57
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You should really stick to this as this is the most efficient build I have used:

  • 25 vitality
  • 19 attunement
  • 40 endurance (makes casting time faster)
  • 16 strength
  • 45 dexterity (if you like fast hitting weapons, go dexterity. Go strength if you like slow but painful weapon)
  • 11 resistance
  • You will need 0 faith and intelligence
Frank
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Aleef
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    The comment about casting time belongs on dexterity rather than endurance. http://darksouls.wikidot.com/dexterity – Sean B Aug 26 '15 at 02:13
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If your going to be a PYROMANCER, where your fighting is based around PYROMANCER castings, you need to get your Attunement up till you have 4 or 5 cast slots, vitality and endurance up (obviously, as with all builds) and then DEXTERITY. Dexterity is the differance between casting 5 times in 809 seconds, too casting a combustion per second. I think the speed cap for casting is either 40, or 50. in pvp, if you fight with pyromancies (or even sorceries) dexterity is a must have (not so much for sorcery since the damage scalings) but for pyromancies you can do around 800 damage at soul level 1 if you spend it all on upgrading your flame, but as I said, a true pyromancer uses dexterity then vit and stam like any other build. stop upgrading dexterity at 45 (just to be safe) and get enough str to use Quelaags Fury sword (a decent weapon till SLvl 250). This will leave you a good base damage weapon that ypou can use humanity to do more damage with, knocks down shields pretty well, then get your great combustions, black flames, etc. my level 70 pyromancer can solo four kings on ng4 in about 20 seconds (crown of dusk, bellowing dragon ring, darkmoon seance ring, ascended flame+5, 3 black flame spells, 3 great combustion spells.. about..24 casts for each adding them up, 48 castings in total around 900+ dmg each hit. using full cleric+10 armor, medium dodge speed using grass shield)

Thewulf777
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  • I did not know Pyromancy casting speed is affected by Dexterity. Can someone confirm this? – Code Whisperer Dec 10 '13 at 19:48
  • You said you have Bellowing Dragoncrest Ring and Darkmoon Seance Ring on for the FK on NG+4... But how the hell do you fight Four Kings without Covenant of Artorias on? Don't you just die there without it - as in you fall through the ground and die? – NeverwinterMoon Jan 15 '19 at 21:43
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Remember that it's almost always better to improve your weapons and armor than your stats.

If embers are not limiting your efforts, consider choosing to upgrade your weapon instead of leveling up.

This game is not so heavy on leveling as it is on equipment.

mmmattias
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I'm gonna be a bit vague about locations as to try and leave you some fun finding things, but leave enough detail that you can easily google if you want to get right to it

If you have access to the depths then you can find Laurentius.

enter image description here

If you haven't found him already it is a good idea to as he can

  • Upgrade your pyromancy flame [Only need souls!][He can't upgrade it all the way though, that's a different character]
  • Sell you pyromancies
  • Gives you a pyromancy flame if you don't already have one
  • and is involved in a side-quest about pyromancy [you'll lose him as a pyromancy teacher though]

You have to find him and then go meet him at Firelink before he can do anything for you.

Other things you might be able to try are

  1. Leveling attunement makes sense, but it takes multiple levels for each slot. There are also a couple rings that add attunement slots but they aren't available to you yet.
  2. You can theoretically get the Dusk Crown Ring which gives you twice as many casts but slashes your HP meter in half. If you think that sounds worth it you would have to go find the Darkroot Basin and kill the hydra, which is a hard-ish fight at where you are in the game and pretty far away.
  3. You can find Griggs [pictured below] and buy the Bellowing Dragoncrest Ring from him once he returns to Firelink which makes pyromancies [sorceries also!] do 20% extra damage, but it is pretty pricey [20,000 souls]. You must also have a minimum INT of 10 or he will not sell you anything.

enter image description here

  • Also the Crown of Dusk, a head armor that adds 20% to pyromancies [miracles and sorceries too!] and can be stacked with the Bellowing Dragoncrest Ring but also reduces magic defense by 30% [not that big a deal]. You need to go behind where the Hydra is and all the way in the back corner will be a corpse that should have the Crown [and a bit more] on it, you might need to kill the Hydra and another enemy first though and then reload the area , not quite certain on that.

  • Upgrading dex speeds casting times [maxed at 46 dex]. The real bonus to dex is weapon scaling though so don't try and go crazy on this for cast time.

    Also for non-pyromancy specific things

  • Drop your shield while you wait for an enemy to attack, your stamina regains far faster with it down

  • If you run out of estus you can use Humanity [the item] to heal

  • Upgrade your weapon often, it is one of the best things damage-wise you can do

  • Unless you have one of the heavier armors [and even then] don't bother upgrading armor

    I hope this makes things a bit more manageable for you going forward!

Sources

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Stormthehouse
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Dex pyromancy casting speed increase starts at 30 and ends at 45 so I would say upgrade str, dex, str, dex, and so on until str reaches 16 as this allows you to use pretty much any 1H weapon as long as your dex is high enough then get dex to 45 you may also want to up attunement until you have 4 or 5 slots then go for endurance up to 40 and after that bump up your vitality to at least 30 and do whatever you want after that don't put anything into intelligence, resistance, or faith they are useless for a pyromancer also for equipment you always want to be under 25% equip load so you can run and roll at max speed

user193478
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