Board Thread:Dark Souls II/@comment-11372593-20140719083612/@comment-76.85.89.104-20180101105939

Super late to this. But as of 2017, magic in PvE is mostly excellent. Magic in PvP however...not so much. Even with the fastest casting speed in the game, you still leave a lot open to counter attack and most spells are excessively easy to dodge. I have come to mostly use a shield and the ultra great sword, the great sword. I manage to eke out close to an 85%  win rate in PvP with my great sword and shield and have literally never lost to a pure magic/pyro/miracle/dark opponent...ever.I've occasionally lost to a player who subs a magic class while maining a dex or str based weapon, but never to a full on magic based player. I tried out a solid PvP mage class and my win rate dropped to a mere 25~30%. Now perhaps im not great at timing mage atacks, but there are few nuances in magic based combat and if your attack is dodged, then you are almost always hit. The only way to play mage or whatever magic based character is to get distance and shoot from afar, however, its too easy to close in on a mage and recovery time for most magics is anywhere from half to twice the time it took to cast it leaving giant openings. The fast magics that can usually land tend not to stagger or do much damage which seems to almost always lead into a damage trade off that leaves the mage worse for wear. As a supporting or initiating skill magic can be useful, but mostly, magic isn't teribly useful in PvP. After a bit of experience, its fairly easy to se what spell is coming  and how to avoid it and get in close for heavy damage or an insta-kill on the more squishy mages.