Am I stupid or do faith builds suck?

[MisterRed]

I made a thread a few days asking if it was fun, since I wanted to do a faith build for my final achievement run, and the response was about 50/50 between it being unfun vs fun, playing it now, and I'm wondering if I am doing something wrong, because the build feels beyond weak rn at least. I rushed Flame of Frenzy for my attack spell, and that does decent damage, sometimes. My spell slots are Heal, Flame of Frenzy, and Flame Sling. I use a lordsworn straightsword with holy infusion. This is the first time I've struggled with Margit, who guards the Godskin Tome I need for black fire. Both my melee builds easily steamrolled the first boss, while even after grinding more than usual my faith build struggles. Am I missing a vital part of how to do this kind of build, or are there just kinda bad?

[Dropkick]

try catch flame, O' flame and erdtree seal

[Quadsword]

Pure faith sucks. Half the bosses resist holy damage and the final boss just straight up heals from it.

[|Revenge|]

No poise really hurts them.

[Kyutaru]

You're using offense. Faith is about defense. You'll find the good stuff later. For now, spamming Heal is quite good and OP as hell.

[Tannhauser]

I think the problem with faith builds is that it takes a bit longer to get the cool incantations compared to sorceries.

[XTAKK]

Compared to the meta builds yeah. But I've done 2 faith runs now and they are just more fun to me. You can be more efficient with other builds, but faith has pretty good weapon choices and if you just accept you won't be spamming offensive spells is pretty fun.

You can have a pretty good early game faith build by not focusing on going for the higher str/dex requirement weapons and just grabbing two straight swords (lordsword drops from godrick soldiers are fine) and putting Sacred Blade on right hand and Golden vow on other. If you run ahead to liurnia you can grab the lightning spear and a few other incantations as well as run through Loretta to get carian retaliation and be very strong in the early game ez pz. Grab the faith knot tear in weeping peninsula with a short run and your damage will be surprisingly high.

[Arlen]

the ability to heal without using a flask is amazing. faith builds are more about the self utility then actually going in like a sorcerer, The best faith builds in my opinion, are hybrid bulds, take just enough faith required for the highest incantation you want to cast, the sacred ashes are situational at best, and useless against many bosses, so its not likely you will be using faith to scale your weapons.

[Kyutaru]

Early game, Golden Vow sacred ash is anything but useless because it buffs your damage as well as defense. For such a potent buff on a barely armored character with a poor weapon it's quite the game changer.

[MisterRed]

Originally posted by billybobtexan1000:

the ability to heal without using a flask is amazing. faith builds are more about the self utility then actually going in like a sorcerer, The best faith builds in my opinion, are hybrid bulds, take just enough faith required for the highest incantation you want to cast, the sacred ashes are situational at best, and useless against many bosses, so its not likely you will be using faith to scale your weapons.

Yeah, my issue is that Margit always put my foolish ambitions to rest if I try to sneak heals in lol. And maybe I really should go hybrid build. My plan is a finger maiden cosplay with the Winged Scythe, so maybe Dex Faith does well

[Kyutaru]

Originally posted by MisterRed:

Originally posted by billybobtexan1000:

the ability to heal without using a flask is amazing. faith builds are more about the self utility then actually going in like a sorcerer, The best faith builds in my opinion, are hybrid bulds, take just enough faith required for the highest incantation you want to cast, the sacred ashes are situational at best, and useless against many bosses, so its not likely you will be using faith to scale your weapons.

Yeah, my issue is that Margit always put my foolish ambitions to rest if I try to sneak heals in lol. And maybe I really should go hybrid build. My plan is a finger maiden cosplay with the Winged Scythe, so maybe Dex Faith does well

Cosplay and Heals can win the game by themselves.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKoJQhB1JAk

[MisterRed]

Originally posted by Kyutaru:

You're using offense. Faith is about defense. You'll find the good stuff later. For now, spamming Heal is quite good and OP as hell.

So I guess that kinda means for now its an uphill battle then? I mean I don't mind struggling, but it definitely feels clear that I've never done a Caster build in a souls game before lol. Not in DS2 or DS3

[MisterRed]

Originally posted by Kyutaru:

Originally posted by MisterRed:

Yeah, my issue is that Margit always put my foolish ambitions to rest if I try to sneak heals in lol. And maybe I really should go hybrid build. My plan is a finger maiden cosplay with the Winged Scythe, so maybe Dex Faith does well

Cosplay and Heals can win the game by themselves.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKoJQhB1JAk

Yeah, I've seen that. Tbh maybe its time I put my ego down for a bit, and actually utilize the ashes mechanic. If faith is better as a support, its probably gonna be best I have a few sub DPS summons

[Caramel_Clown]

If you want to see some big boy damage numbers from a melee weapon on faith build try treespear. Super underrated. It has two damage types, but you CAN buff it. So you put lightning armament on top, and for a reasonably low stat investment you get some proper chunking on bosses. It has great reach, good moveset, works exceptionally well with shield or two-handed.

[Get Donked On]

Bolt of gransax is always cool for faith. Make sure you get the godskin prayerbook from stormveil too. It gives black flame fireball wich is pretty good early game. and late game you just need to know what enemies are weak to most enemies die to black flame type skills. altho for most bosses late game fire or lightning work well. Also always stack golden vow and flame grant me strength if you think you can kill your enemies with fire its a 50%dmg boost especially good for bosses. Also ofc strength faith combo is always good but going pure faith caster does require decent poise so dont completely neglect endurance. Im assuming you wont be pvping with it tho cuz incantations have kinda long cast times and are even easier to dodge than sorcereries.

[rasabt]

if you mean running pure and only holy or flame..yeah that's not great in PvE
but the beauty of the system is that even with minor stat investment you can diversivy your damage-type.
holy works against some enemies pretty well, but lightning and fire are almost Uber against many annyoin enemies. bighands? fire; beast? fire...etc.

also the buffing nature of FAITH can make a decent starter build deal almost midgame damage without to much effort, or realy excell lategame damage; the stat cure is nice to have as is the regen and def-buff.

playing pure caster FAITH is also pretty effective, but again: you need to keep damage-types in mind.

about the only thing i like "less" than in DS3 for example is the Zeus-thunder-throw-animation; DS3's just felt better.