early game faith?

[Guidsmaster]

feels pretty underwhelming so far, at least compared to melee and sorcery. i rushed pure faith, got the cipher pata tho was still using a morning star until i levelled the cipher a bit. have a bunch of lightning and fire spells, but the damage isnt that great despite all my faith and upgraded seal, and the fp cost seems pretty restricting. Aside from catch flame which does great damage against certain enemies, especially with its low fp cost, im generally just melee attacking cause the spells dont seem worth it.

Any tips on what a good early faith build/loadout looks like? guessing its something like 30-40 faith, ~20 vigor and ~20 mind? I went wretch, pumped vigor to 20 and faith to 30. raised arcane to 17 (which ill respec asap since i didnt realize dragon incantations were mostly based off of arcane despite the larger faith requirements). raised str to around 14-16 since ultimately im hoping to use some of the str/fth weapons and this amount let me use the turtle shield. using cipher pata and godslayer seal (had better fth//incantation scaling than finger seal, and also boosts godslayer incantations), though im anxious to switch off this weapon

[Krono]

Magic builds in this game are always kinda weak early but scale up into easy mode by later on in the game. Make sure you're upgrading your catalyst for one thing, that'll enhance your incantations a lot.

Your stats look fine to me, although I personally didn't like the CIpher Pata when I tried using it. Mediocre damage and pitiful range, I swapped to the Halo scythe (after like an hour of farming for it, jesus christ) and I love that thing now

[SpaceWombat]

Most enemies early on are highly resistant to holy damage so incantations alone won't get you very far. That'll shift later on when you are against enemies who are tanky against magic but weaker to holy and occult.

[Ahriman]

Pure faith is trash for doing damage in PVE, I do not recommend it and Cipher Patra is also trash unless you're only fighting enemies that are actually weak to Holy (very bad idea for the last boss btw). I recommend you level dex along with faith because there are many good faith/dex weapons. For damage I recommend the following spells: Giantsflame Take Thee (pretty lategame), lightning spear and ancient dragon lightning strike. The rest just isn't really worth casting until they buff incantation speeds/hyperarmor

[GermanyMan]

^
That what my fellow mate wrote there is 100% correct.
I would add that the choice of your weapon should be made by ONLY yourself, it doesnt help you when someone says "This is good" when you dont actually like to play that weapon.
Take what you want but keep in mind that you want it to be faith based. So try some sepcial weapons with innate FTH scaling or go take some normal armament and make it with Ashes of War into a FTH scaling weapon. ;)

[SpaceWombat]

casting in general is pretty bogus in pve because even with 150 poise you still get interrupted by any attack as long as it is in the first few frames of the animation. weapon arts definitely reign supreme in that sense.

[Guidsmaster]

great replies, thanks folks! I'll try a bit of farming to test out the scythe. I had been planning on raising dex since i was really curious about black flame blade + claws, as it seems to provide a flat damage amount regardless of weapon, only concern is the super low duration (literally lasts like 5-10 seconds lol). and yeah the cipher pata is depressing, but i didnt really know what else to use, as i figured the answer to my trash damage was pumping more faith instead of raising str/dex for a wider access to different weapons, especially when combined with the tip to infusing to faith scaling

[The_K00lDude]

Until you get the black flame spell and/or dragon spells. There's not much good offensive spells early

[Tryust]

Winged Scythe is pretty good early on, halo scythe also, pretty much any weapon with bleed are good. now i'm trying cross-naginata with the sacred ring of light ash of war, looks like it has better scaling and base damage.

The lightning spear incantations deals good single target from a range.

[Dovah]

Well there is some good early faith Ashes of War's that can be abused alot. that can do ton of damage

[Guidsmaster]

lightning spear and black flame are decent damage, but i can only cast it 3 times per flask, and it does about as much damage as a running light attack from my cipher pata, so i pretty much only use them in scenarios when i want to snipe a particular enemy from a group at a distance

[Guidsmaster]

Dovah eredeti hozzászólása:

Well there is some good early faith Ashes of War's that can be abused alot. that can do ton of damage

any idea on what it's called? would be great even if its just for the faith based infusion until i get more whetstones

*actually ill just look it up, but ty for the tip!

[VadeN]

Guidsmaster eredeti hozzászólása:

got the cipher pata

Don't use it, it's super bad.

have a bunch of lightning and fire spells

Just use lightning for ranged attacks, otherwise use weapon.

Any tips on what a good early faith build/loadout looks like? guessing its something like 30-40 faith, ~20 vigor and ~20 mind? I went wretch, pumped vigor to 20 and faith to 30. raised arcane to 17

Just get 30-35 vigor, 20 mind and pump up faith all the time.
If you want to cheese bosses just get 12 arcane and use scarlet rot breathe.

[Watcher Rat]

Krono eredeti hozzászólása:

I swapped to the Halo scythe (after like an hour of farming for it, jesus christ) and I love that thing now

So much this, for Faith builds. I run it on my Confessor and it completely changed the game (after struggling with it quite a bit, with this as my first Souls-type game). Halo absolutely made some tougher fights I'd struggled with a cakewalk, and really helped me learn a lot more of the game without it being a hopeless struggle since I could actually kill things suddenly.

[Dreams of Fury]

I'm actually specing out of my faith build after breaking my face against the last boss who im doing pitiful damage to currently.

But a bit of advice for you is to play more like a paladin type, go melee with faith scaling weapons, Winged Scythe, Halo Scythe, and Ryktors greatsword being my personal faves. Tote around a decent shield and swap your offhand for your catalyst that is intentionally for buffing your primary spell types and throw you incantations when the time is right.

DO NOT and i repeat do NOT just spam incantations like a mage with spells....it will get you nowhere in the long run, FP costs are far too high, cast times too long (talisman doesn't appear to work for cast speed though it says both sorceries and incantations) and while the damage is amazing you just cant spam, use it as filler when your forced to back off, for engaging and any openers, youll see a huge improvment.

[VadeN]

Dreams of Fury eredeti hozzászólása:

(talisman doesn't appear to work for cast speed though it says both sorceries and incantations)

It really does work, it's very noticable with Lightning Spear.