Running a pure FTH build and looking for the best general use weapon

[Melchiah]

I thought it would be as easy as just slapping Sacred on whatever weapon I wanted to use, but turns out holy damage sucks.

Is there anything with a good FTH scaling that I can rely on for general use, or am I doomed to just use Flame Art and switch to Sacred if they are resistant to fire?.

[kestar]

That Halo scythe dropped by the Cleanrot Knights in the center of the swamp in Caelid is pretty dope, it is faith based, inflicts bleed and has a nice ranged weapon art where you throw spinning homing golden discs of light.

To farm it, go to Commander Neils’s grace in the red swamp, then south. Farm knights for a while and you will get it.

[Lord Bob]

Escrito originalmente por Melchiah:

Is there anything with a good FTH scaling that I can rely on for general use, or am I doomed to just use Flame Art and switch to Sacred if they are resistant to fire?.

From my experience pretty much this.
For mid-late game cipher Pata deals a ton of damage to most enemies, but for bosses I still rather relied on incantations to deal the main damage.
When it comes to affinities the Uchigatana is pretty much the best. I yet have to find another weapon that gets a B in FTH at +25 and out damages the Uchi.
Also the additional bleed on top of the damage is a plus, which many other weapons lack.
Although I still think it that it is not a fitting weapon for a pure FTH build Imo.

Also I should add that you might have to invest some points into DEX, as the uchi requires 15 to wield it.

Escrito originalmente por kestar:

That Halo scythe dropped by the Cleanrot Knights in the center of the swamp in Caelid is pretty dope, it is faith based, inflicts bleed and has a nice ranged weapon art where you throw spinning homing golden discs of light

Also a good choice, then again 16 DEX stat investment.

[[Lethalvriend]]

Depends on which actual faith incantations you use. It's also possible to just use faith for some buffs and focus on str/dex/arcane for example. I've just started a faith build myself so no clue yet where I'll end up as I'm super duper early game and can barely do faith stuff so far. There appear to be quite a few guides online about faith builds, but sadly many focus on 60+hr lategame stuff. If you have a sacred weapon you can still apply lightning of holy etc. to it. Perhaps that'll make them more usable? Golden Halberd from the literal first boss outside the starting tomb is also strong.

[Drukaris]

faith builds are pretty situational - but you have some nice body buffs
one fire art weapon and one holy weapon should get you through tho
maybe in a dual weapon setup?

[Stevey The Ex-Eevee]

just be careful running the build on the last boss, yeah?

[Baron01]

I honestly do not think you should invest into max Faith (capped at 80) if you intended to be a melee character. Faith weapons tend to have more quality build scaling. If you are caster just using weapon as a last resort by all means pump your Faith.

I started my character with intention to be a melee character using faith to provide buffs to my weapons and my character. I ended up using Treespear & various shields through out most of the game. I ultimately had fairly "quality" build spreading my stats over strength, dexterity, faith and even branching to arcane at the end.

Many faith scaling weapons scale in strength, dexterity and faith. Some of best, such as Blasphemous Blade, are fairly even in scaling across the board while some are a bit more into strength or dexterity. I opted for Treespear and Sacred Relic Sword (as an end-game weapon) so I got my dexterity to 80 and Faith to 55.

Edit: You can get Treespear fairly early as well. It is one of few weapons that while having unique ash of war can be upgraded with normal smithing stones and let you buff it with spell and consumables.

[Melchiah]

Escrito originalmente por Lord Bob:

From my experience pretty much this.
For mid-late gamr cipher pat deals a ton of damage to most enemies, but for bosses I still rather relied on incantations to deal the main damage.
When it comes to affinities the Uchigatana is pretty much the best. I yet have to find another weapon that gets a B in FTH at +25 and out damages the Uchi.
Also the additional bleed on top of the damage is a plus, which many other weapons lack.
Although I still think it that it is not a fitting weapon for a pure FTH build Imo.

Also I should add that you might have to invest some points into DEX, AS THE uchi requires 15 to wield it.

I'm trying to stay away from katanas as much as possible cause I always end up using them on these games, and I really like Godskin Peeler's moveset when two handed (it also has a B scaling on FTH) so I guess I'll go for that.

Escrito originalmente por kestar:

That Halo scythe dropped by the Cleanrot Knights in the center of the swamp in Caelid is pretty dope, it is faith based, inflicts bleed and has a nice ranged weapon art where you throw spinning homing golden discs of light

Yeah but it's FTH scaling sucks ass with a marvelous D at +10.

Escrito originalmente por Drukaris:

faith builds are pretty situational - but you have some nice body buffs
one fire art weapon and one holy weapon should get you through tho
maybe in a dual weapon setup?

I'm trying to avoid dual weapon setups (mostly due upgrade costs) but I guess I have no choice here. seems like pure FTH is the least versatile of the builds. If possible I'd like something I could enchant without running on secondary stats shennanigans (I want to raise as much FTH as possible after all).

Escrito originalmente por Stevey The Ex-Eevee:

just be careful running the build on the last boss, yeah?

By that time I'll have Black Knife and Tiche summon to double down on the pain so holy absorption shouldn't be a problem.

[NC31]

Coded Sword is straight holy damage and mostly faith scaling. Golden Order Greatsword is also pretty nice. Both weapon arts are cool, too.

[Melchiah]

Escrito originalmente por NC31:

Coded Sword is straight holy damage and mostly faith scaling. Golden Order Greatsword is also pretty nice. Both weapon arts are cool, too.

And both deal holy damage with one being pure holy damage (coded sword), which is not exactly ideal.

Escrito originalmente por Baron01:

I honestly do not think you should invest into max Faith (capped at 80) if you intended to be a melee character. Faith weapons tend to have more quality build scaling. If you are caster just using weapon as a last resort by all means pump your Faith.

I started my character with intention to be a melee character using faith to provide buffs to my weapons and my character. I ended up using Treespear & various shields through out most of the game. I ultimately had fairly "quality" build spreading my stats over strength, dexterity, faith and even branching to arcane at the end.

Many faith scaling weapons scale in strength, dexterity and faith. Some of best, such as Blasphemous Blade, are fairly even in scaling across the board while some are a bit more into strength or dexterity. I opted for Treespear and Sacred Relic Sword (as an end-game weapon) so I got my dexterity to 80 and Faith to 55.

Edit: You can get Treespear fairly early as well. It is one of few weapons that while having unique ash of war can be upgraded with normal smithing stones and let you buff it with spell and consumables.

I'm actually planning to use my melee as a back up in case I run out of FP and ashtus... which happens very often even at midgame (and probably on end game too).

[Deadeye64]

Escrito originalmente por NC31:

Coded Sword is straight holy damage and mostly faith scaling. Golden Order Greatsword is also pretty nice. Both weapon arts are cool, too.

^
In the same vein as the coded sword there's also the fist weapon variant thats pure holy damage, and that can be found in Roundtable hold where the invader is. There's also the Winged Scythe, that thing is *amazing*

[Deviant]

winged scythe and halo scythe dual wield them they are really pog the halo scythe have amazing weapon art good for bosses the winged scythe is good for pvp to put in right hand wichever weapon art you gonna use

[XTAKK]

real talk you can pump up your str/dex to use the better faith weapons but I just recently went with two lordsworn swords you can get from godrick soldiers so I could put all my points into faith for holy damage and better spell damage and ong dude, turns faith build into damage monster. Three L1 swings and I do 3k damage. Spells do 2k, using the cheesy explosive elixr does 8k. It's nutty.

Run and get golden vow ash for offhand sword and sacred blade ash (both early game accessible ashes) for main sword and even early game you can do three L1 swings for 1800 damage at lvl 20 unbuffed. Add your early game accessible holy damage/faith boost elixr and you can get over 2k easy. Can even throw sacred scorp charm on for real cheesy damage goodness. That's b4 you beat Margit or Godrick, if you have more tali slots you can get even crazier.

[Melchiah]

Escrito originalmente por Deadeye64:

Escrito originalmente por NC31:

Coded Sword is straight holy damage and mostly faith scaling. Golden Order Greatsword is also pretty nice. Both weapon arts are cool, too.

^
In the same vein as the coded sword there's also the fist weapon variant thats pure holy damage, and that can be found in Roundtable hold where the invader is. There's also the Winged Scythe, that thing is *amazing*

No thanks, I don't want to face Malenia with pure holy damage. I might go with Winged Scythe cause it at least does Bleeding (and dump it for the final boss).

[JAYM-Z]

If you prefer straight swords the Coded Sword I found is really nice for a faith build. I think it's at the round table hold in the royal capital - so you get it kinda late into the game. You'll probably want something decently upgraded with physical or some other damage type as a backup though for anything that has high holy resist (which is thankfully not that common)

[Kai]

The Holy Scorpion Talisman is attainable very early in the game, there are physik flask upgrades that grant Holy damage bonus, The commoner clothing item grants +1 Faith, as well as there exists Two Finger Talismans and Marika Talismans that boosts Faith and related stats.

You can actually run Str based Dagger that boosts Bestial Incantations, then run the highest Faith catalyst scaling with it, it will still boost the Bestial incantations. Beast Clawmark scales mainly with STR so the value is very low unless you have a pure strength build, and the bonus on that only works for pure STR characters anyways since it's like a flat 5-10% bonus?

So yeah use a incantation catalyst that works best for your stats, not the effects.

The Arcane catalyst on high arcane stats will see Beast Sling do out twice as much damage than trying to build a STR build for Beast Clawmark, early game. You can get that Dragon catalyst from the start of the game if you get yourself a bow and 2 Sword keys, as you just need to destroy the Chariot with giant magic explosive pots hanging on the ceiling, which gets you a Erdtree Greatbow as well that scales with Faith.