Summary
This build capitalizes on the defenses, poise and multiplicative buffs of the Crucible armor (*4% damage increase per piece, *17% in total) for casting Crucible Incantations alongside the Dragon Communion Seal’s efficient level investment for casting (with softcaps at 30 Faith and 45 Arcane, achieves the same as a 75 Faith investment on Godslayer’s seal) in order to deliver a tanky caster that can further exploit both 20% Exultation talisman buffs for their spells using the fast hitting and light-weight claw and fist weapons. The kit includes flexibility for easily sniping long-range threats, stance-breaking spells for heavy enemies, stun-locking smaller enemies and lower poise players with your faster melee hits, as well as debuffs to enemy damage and damage reduction.
Medium roll is easily kept. The weapons included are just to show AR comparisons. I prefer only one melee weapon equipped to avoid confusion. Level Endurance as below in order to:
- Endurance to 18 for Raptor Talons or Caestus and Medium Roll.
- Endurance to 19 for flexibility with Venomous Fangs or Spiked Caestus and Medium roll.
- Endurance to 21 for equipping both Raptor Talons and Venomous Fangs for alternating Poison & Bleed build-up with a higher base AR occult option while keeping Medium roll.
Spell Combos
- Flame Grant Me Strength into Frenzied burst for sniping. Cast with Dragon Communion seal but swap right to hold Frenzied Flame Seal in other hand for buffed snipe.
- Horns into Tail for stance breaking heavy enemies. Physical damage is also buffed by Flame Grant Me Strength.
- Endure into Greyoll’s Roar into Tail for groups of enemies. Physical damage is also buffed by Flame Grant Me Strength.
- Claws are capable of an easy Endure -> R2 x2 -> Endure -> R2 x2 -> Endure -> Flask as needed on bosses with brief or few punish windows. Bestial Vitality can stretch this farther. Your high FP will easily allow you this tanking option for aggressive heavy enemies that punish your slow cast times.
- Greyoll’s Roar applies -15% damage output and -10% damage reduction to enemies for 60 seconds. Stackable with frostbite’s -20% damage reduction (for 30 seconds) applied with Borealis’s Mist. Multiplicative effect would be 32% damage increase. Consider Freezing grease to limit spell clutter.
Weapon flexible suggestions include:
- Raptor Claws has unique R2 charged heavies, launching you forward to close distance. Its jump attacks also have 10% faster animation. Your lightest weight high bleed option even with Occult scaling.
- Swap Venomous Fangs or Raptor Talons for first right hand slot depending on enemy immunities and throw on Kindred of Rot’s Exultation in place of Flock or Sword Insignia when able to exploit Bleed * Poison status buffs. Rotten Sword Insignia can grant up to a 13% damage bonus to your attacks and spells and builds stacks with the multi-hit Tail incantation, but since stacks decay in 1.5 seconds and many of your incantation cast times reach 2 seconds, it is more likely Rotten Sword Insignia achieves the same 8% damage bonus for your spells that Flock’s Canvas Talisman does.
- Venomous Fangs will uniquely build up deadly poison. Blood infused will add bleed for 2 easy exultation buffs. Poison Moth Flight (or Poison Flower Blooms Twice) explodes the Poison build-up allowing reapplication and extension of the 20 second poison talisman Exultation buff. Alternatively, poison infused will cause the deadly poison to last longer.
- Strike Weak enemies like the Catacombs stone enemies, consider (Spiked) Caestus, particularly since these are immune to bleed and poison. Talisman kit may instead be Rotten Sword Insignia, Godfrey’s Icon, Flock and whatever fourth is preferred.
On Healing:
Healing incantations all scale ONLY on the faith scaling, so the Dragon Communion Seal only achieves approximately 150 incant scaling for these. Lord’s Heal would provide a 4.2 healing multiplier, providing just 630 health for yourself and 315 for others. You will still want for Crimson Flasks and other passive healing options such as the healing on kill from Rykard’s Rune or the much-ridiculed Bestial Vitality to ignore chip damage.
