Hello everyone and welcome to my shadow mage
build guide. This is a high Intelligence build that utilizes
the Night Sorceries like Unseen Form to move around undetected and eliminate your enemies
from far away with powerful sorceries like Night Comet or deliver devastating backstabs
and deal with your enemies in close combat with the Moonveil Katana. It's a powerful Mage build that also offers
a great deal of freedom and exploration and the best thing is that you can create this
build from the early game as all the essential weapons and sorceries for this build are accessible
right from the very beginning. The most important sorcery in our build is
Night Comet. It is a powerful spell that has great range
and can pierce through multiple enemies, and that is something I was constantly taking
advantage of in my playthrough. It can also be charged up to deal even more
damage. But what truly set this sorcery apart is that
Bosses like Malenia and Godskin Apostle that tend to evade and dodge your spells and incantations
will not react at all to Night Comet. Making this the most effective Spell in the
entire game when dealing with these types of enemies. The initial cast of Night Comet is a bit long
but you can chain-cast it to make every subsequent cast significantly shorter, allowing you to
barrage your enemies and take them down much faster. It's relatively expensive to cast at least
in the early game, because of that, you can use its lesser version Night Shard until you
build a bigger FP pool. To cast our spells, we'll be relying on the
Staff of Loss. It provides a 30% increase in damage for Night
Comet and Night Shard spells. If you want to further boost this effectiveness,
you can use a second staff to stack an additional 30% increase but keep in mind that you can
only obtain one per playthrough so if you want a second staff either have a friend trade
you one or jump into New Game Plus and obtain another one yourself. I tested the Staff of Loss with other Night
Sorceries like Ambush Shard and Night Maiden's Mist but found that the Staff of Loss only
boosted Night Shard and Night Comet damage. Keep in mind that the Staff of Loss is most
effective when you are at 60 to 80 intelligence. Beyond 80 intelligence, you'll experience
diminishing returns and won't see much benefit from investing further. I tested out several different staves, including
Lusat's Staff, Carian Regal Scepter, and even the Prince's of Death Staff, all with 99 Faith
and Intelligence. However, none of them could match the raw
damage output of the Staff of Loss when it comes to Night Sorceries. You can obtain both Night Comet and Staff
of Loss from Sellia, Town of Sorcery. The Staff of Loss is on a corpse hanging on
a Balcony while Night Comet is located in a chest locked behind a barrier. To remove the barrier, you only need to light
up the torch located at the very south of the town. Not very far away from Sellia, you will also
find Father Gowry in his shack and you can buy Night Shard from him after completing
his initial quest by defeating Commander O'Neil and giving the Needle to Millicent. I chose the Moonveil katana as a melee weapon
for this build, a weapon that hardly needs an introduction. it's a very fast and powerful weapon that
can be obtained from the early game. The Moonveil katana deals both physical and
magic damage and scales primarily with dexterity and intelligence. Increasing dexterity improves physical damage
while intelligence increases the weapon's magic damage. The Moonveil Ash of War "Transient Moonlight"
deals 100% Magic damage and scales only with intelligence. There are two ways you can use this Ash of
War, pressing L2+R1 creates a horizontal Magic Arc that can hit multiple enemies so this
is ideal for Aoe. L2+R2 Creates a vertical Magic Arc that deals
more damage which makes it a better option against single enemies. It's worth noting that using this Ash of War
in close proximity to your target will not only cause slightly more damage but will also
deal significant poise damage, around 30 points. To put this into perspective, a heavy-charged
Moonveil R2 deals 33 points of poise damage. This means using Transient Moonlight at close
range will help you stagger enemies more efficiently. The weapon also inflicts bleed damage, so
with enough swings, you will trigger a hemorrhage on your target. You can obtain Moonveil after defeating the
Magma Wyrm located in Gael Tunnel in Caelid. Unseen Form is a fantastic spell that you
will have a lot of fun using. It doesn't actually make you invisible but
rather reduces the range at which enemies can detect you, allowing you to maneuver around
them for backstabs or position yourself to line up Night Comet to take down multiple
enemies at the same time. I enjoy exploring the World undetected while
under the effect of this sorcery and silently taking enemies out. However, it's worth noting that the effect
only lasts for 30 seconds, so you'll need to refresh it regularly during your playthrough. An interesting thing about this Sorcery is
that if you cast before entering a Boss fight, they don't react right away towards you as
they normally do. This can be very handy, to give you enough
time to make your setup like casting Terra Magica, drinking your flask, and casting Rennala's
Full Moon. I noticed this when fighting Bosses like Godfrey
and Morgot but some Bosses will completely ignore it and behave as they normally do. Unseen Form is located inside a chest on top
of invisible tower in Altus Plataeu. To reveal the tower you have to interact with
three blue seals scattered around the Area. The first seal is located near the Imp statue,
the second is a short distance to the southwest, and the third is hidden under an illusionary
rock in the far east. Interact with all three seals and climb the
tower to obtain Unseen Form. Assassin's Gambit Ash of War provides a similar
effect. It makes you partially invisible but also
muffles your footsteps for 30 seconds. I was curious if the effects of Unseen Form
and Assassin's Gambit would stack, and to my surprise, they actually did. To test this, I tried to sneak around the
enemies in Hailgtree with each spell on its own but I couldn't. However, once I used both Unseen Form and
Assassin's Gambit Ash of War together, I could easily walk around them very close and completely
undetected. This will also allow you to get even closer
to certain Bosses without alerting them. Additionally, it is worth noting that the
effect of Assassin's Gambit Ash of War does not wear off when unequipping the weapon used
to activate the buff. Another interesting Night Sorcery is Eternal
Darkness. It functions as a black hole that consumes
spells that target your character. However, I didn't like it so much since it
creates a black spot on your screen that obscures your field of view. It also doesn't consume all spells only those
with homing properties like Glintblade Phalanx. However, It can be very handy against certain
Bosses like Loretta, Knight of the Haligtree. We are also using Terra Magica. This will create a magic sigil on the ground
that lasts for 30 seconds and boost all your sorceries and Moonveil magic damage by 35%. Once I cast Terra Magica, I typically follow
up with Rennala's Moon, which reduces the target's spell damage negation by 10% for
a minute. This effect takes place immediately, unlike
other effects such as Cold or Bleed which require you to bypass the enemy's resistance. Alternatively, you can use Ranni's Dark Moon
which has the added bonus of potentially inflicting Frostbite, which increases all damage dealt
to the target by an additional 20%. Both moons have impressive range and homing
capabilities, which allow them to track even the most evasive enemies. Additionally, they explode on impact, damaging
any nearby enemies. The hotfix 1.09.1 fixed Golden Vow, Flame
grant me Strength and Howl of Shabriri damage to Incantations and Sorceries. You can take advantage of this by obtaining
the Golden Vow Ash of War from early on and attach to any weapon like a Dagger and use
it to buff yourself. It is a lesser version of the Golden Vow incantation
that boosts all your damage by 10% and damage negation by 7.5% for 45 seconds. The talismans we are using for this build
are Magic Scorpion Charm to increase all the magic damage we deal by 12%. This affects your Sorceries as well as Moonveil. Graven-Mass Talisman boosts the damage of
your sorceries by 8%. However, you do need to reach Mountaintops
of the Giants to obtain this one but you can use Graven-School Talisman until then which
also boosts sorceries damage but for only 4%. The effect from those two talismans stacks,
so if you want to focus on Night Comet damage you can use both of them at the same time. Another mandatory talisman for this build
is Godfrey Icon, to boost the damage of charged sorceries by 15%. Ritual Sword Talisman increases all your damage
by 10% when your HP is full. Those were the Talismans setup I used for
most of my end-game content. Another option you want to consider from the
early game is Radagon's Soreseal talisman to meet the requirements for Moonveil Katana
while focusing our points on Mind and Intelligence. Radagon's Icon can be used to decrease Night
Comet casting time by approximately 6%. I tested this and discovered that if you reach
the maximum casting speed reduction from dexterity, which is 70, the casting time for Night Comet
can be reduced by 10%. It's important to note that while using Radagon's
Icon, you only need 40 Dexterity to each the maximum casting speed reduction from dexterity
since the talisman adds 30 virtual Dexterity exclusively for casting speed. The Green Turtle Talisman boosts your stamina
recovery rate. By helping you recover your stamina faster,
the talisman can enable you to cast more Night Comets without having to wait as long for
your stamina to regenerate. There are so many other talismans you can
take advantage of in this build but these were the ones I was frequently using during
my playthrough with this build. For the Flask of Wondrous Physick, Use Magic-Shrouding
Cracked Tear to boost all your magic damage by 20% for 3 minutes. Alongside, use Intelligence-knot Crystal Tear
if you have 70 or less Intelligence. If you have more, replace it with the Cerulean
Hidden Tear to remove all FP consumption from your spells for 15 seconds. This will help you chain cast as many Night
Comets without having to worry about your FP. You can also use Dexterity-knot Crystal Tear
to further boost both Moonveil Katana damage and your Sorceries casting speed. For the Armor, I was using the full Black
Knife Set. It looks great and fits the theme of this
build. The chest piece comes with a bonus of muffling
your footsteps, making it impossible for enemies to hear you coming when sneaking up from behind
them. That being said, it's not the strongest armor
out there, so if you want more protection and poise, you might want to consider replacing
this armor with something else. For the majority of the early game, I was
using the Carian Knight Set from Raya Lucaria Academy but you can use any other armor you
like. If you decided to play this build from the
start of the game, use the Astrologer starter class with the Golden Seed as a keepsake. Also, check out my Early Game guide, you can
use it to upgrade Moonveil Katana to +9 and Staff of Loss to +19 with plenty of other
useful resources we collect along the way. At level 50, you should have 20 Vigor, 23
Mind, 13 Dexterity, and 40 Intelligence. 20 Vigor is quite enough for your early game. I never had trouble surviving with this build
when you consider you are running undetected most of the time. 23 Mind might seem a little too much but Night
Comet can be expensive to cast and we want to make sure we have plenty for Boss fights. I only invested a single point in Dexterity,
along with Radagon's Soreseal, you will enough Strength and Dexterity to use the Moonveil
Katana. 40 intelligence to be able to use Night Comet
and other useful sorceries necessary for this build and this should be your first priority. I was also using Godrick's Great Rune most
of the time. which adds a temporary +5 to all your stats. At level 80, I decided to boost my Vigor to
40 and Intelligence to 50. We are not using heavy armor for this build,
so a bigger health pool is very important for our survival. At level 95 I removed Radagon's Soreseal and
boosted Endurance to 15, Strength to 12, and Dexterity to 18. I did this to free up a talisman slot to start
using Graven-Mass Talisman instead. At level 125, I boosted my Vigor to 45, Mind
to 28, and Intelligence to 70. Along with Intelligence-knot Crystal Tear,
we reached the soft cap for the Staff of Loss which is 80 and we are getting the most damage
for our Night Sorceries. Here are our final stats at level 150. I finished the game twice with build in the
past weeks and this was the progression path that worked best for me but please feel free
to make adjustments to fit things in your own playstyle. If you decided to take this build to New Game
Plus, I would focus on improving Faith until 33 to be able to cast Golden Vow and Howl
of Shabriri. The damage bonus of those two incantations
stacks with other buffs in our build. You can also boost Dexterity up to 70 to maximize
both the Moonveil Katana physical damage and your spell-casting speed. This concludes our Shadow Mage build guide. Thank you so much for watching this video! I hope you found it informative and enjoyable. If you did, please don't forget to give it
a like and leave a comment down below. Your feedback is incredibly valuable to me
and helps me create better content. Once again, thank you for all of your support. It means the world to me and I'm grateful
for each and every one of you. Until next time, have a great day.
