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?

[UnholyDentist]

To have a good headstart with Faith build:

Once you get out of the starting area, go to Liurnia of the Lakes and pick up the Dragon Cult Prayer book and give it to Brother Corhyn or Miriel, Pastor of Vows (this one is better option). Once that's done, buy the Lightning Spear incantation (6000 runes). Then go to Caelid and pickup the Starscourge Heirloom from Fort Gael (found in a chest on top, no need to fight). With this setup, you are going to 1 shoot most enemies (imps and skeletons have high resistance, but they are not a big deal). You can even charge Lightning Spear for better initiative, that way it will most likely 1 shoot your target. It's about 1.5 sec cast time without charging, so pretty fast. This will be one of your main spells. Keep in mind a fully charged Lightning Spear will hit in a small area of AOE, so you can kill multiple enemies as long as they are close to each other (to be more FP efficient).

[Nerevar]

Escrito originalmente por Tannhauser:

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

not true.

Escrito originalmente por 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.

untrue aswell. faith is versatile. offense works just aswell as defense.

Escrito originalmente por Quadsword:

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

false. you can just use a different element with faith to bypass boss resistences.


so much missinformation in 1 thread.

tc youre playing it wrong.

first off. dont use the flame spells early on. instead do this : get to the artists shack grace in liurnia. just to have a checkpoint. you can just ride over there. no bosses needed. then get on torrent again and just circle around the single golden knight south of that grace. he walks along the road. he is strong but you can just kill him with ranged attacks from torrent. just keep your distance and stay moveing around him. once he dies loot the prayerbook he drops.

bring it to the turtle at the church of vows. buy LIGHTING SPEAR incantation from him afterwards and HONED BOLT.

congratz. you now have 2 offensive faith spells that do not suck. the spear is your breed and butter and the other is a spammable offensive tool once the first cast is made (or bypassed by casting something faster first) but it can only be effectively used on even ground. for anything above or below you and for bosses use lighting spear.

if the enemy is stronger charge the spear up. dont do this on fast agile bosses.

get the godslayer seal from stormveil castle. best seal for the start. get the faith talisman from liurnia while you go to the shack. its found literally on the way in ruin. nearly unguarded. bam 5 extra faith for the beginning.

use your new lighting powers to tear the early game apart. make sure you got plenty of fp and flasks for it.

use the cipher pata as your backup tool in case you run out of magic or have to kill weaklings. dont waste spears on weaklings. the cipher is a dual weapon found in roundmemehold. just jump down and run to the left inside to loot it. requires 30 faith to use tough. dont have to kill invader to grab it.

dont use holy ashes with weapons. most of them suck. in generel you wont need much melee anymore once you got lighting spear.

hope that helps. anyone who says offensive faith sucks is doing it wrong. like really. its super good if used correctly.

get frenzy burst as a long range spell for snipeing aswell requires a small trip to the eye of sauron village. no bosses needed tough.

get arcane to 12 aswell. and get rotten breath. apply rotten breath to boss. restore fp. start lobbing lighting spears till its dead. it just works.

if someone tells you this does no dmg compared to bleed builds : ignore em. anything does no dmg currently compared as bleed is broken and will get nerfed into oblivion soon.

[burdfishdemon]

FTH is somewhat underwhelming while ARC is actually godly (and can supplement DEX and/or FTH builds). For instance, the eye laser isn't cheap unless it's an ARC/FTH build (one-shot stun in PvP). Everything FTH can do ARC can do better.

Also why the heck does the dragon communion seal (the ARC seal) outdamage all the others?

Then there's more incantations that also are better for ARC like bloodflame blade, swarm of flies, and the blood claws which actually has combo potential. Oh yeah and lightning ashes of war scale with DEX. It's like FromSoft wants you to just spec DEX/ARC and min FTH and press the I win button via bleed and madness.

I have avoided ARC so far, going from pure FTH to STR/FTH (and I've avoided Blasphemous Blade since it's OP for PVE). I haven't even purchased rot breath.

FromSoft really doesn't like faith haha. 3 was faith's peak and only after DLC. I suppose 1 was good IF you used Tranquil Walk of Peace (which I did not).

Granted I still win a lot of PvP with STR/FTH but only because I have too many hours across games. You have to play better than someone with a meta build.

[Nerevar]

Escrito originalmente por Get Donked On:

Bolt of gransax is always cool for faith. Make sure you get the godskin prayerbook from stormveil too black flame fireball 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 tho 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 gave kinda long cast times and are even easier to dodge that sorcereries.

bolt SUCKS for faith dude so thats terrible uninformed advice. it scales with DEX only. all lighting ashes of war scales with dex for some idiotic reason. dont bother. use the spell version instead if there is one. these scale with faith instead.

firespells suck until you get giantsflame. lighting spear is a much better offensive incant. black flame works but it sucks for fast enemies and bosses.

poise is fully unneeded. dont bother with most incants. they are bad currently compared to lighting spear. the good highend ones are all lategame spells like ancient dragon lighting strike.

[Nerevar]

Escrito originalmente por MisterRed:

Escrito originalmente por 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

dont listen to that guy. he is clearly clueless.

[Kain]

Faith is about buffing, get to around 30 and then you can use most of the good incantations

[Kyutaru]

Elden Beast

Absorptions:

Phy (Sta): 12
Phy (Sla): 12
Phy (Str): 12
Phy (Thr): 12
Magic: 49
Fire: 49
Lightning: 49
Holy: 97

Resistances:

poison: Immune
scarlet rot: Immune
hemmorage: Immune
frostbite: Immune
Death: Immune



... Bring buffs.

[Nerevar]

Escrito originalmente por burdfishdemon:

FTH is somewhat underwhelming while ARC is actually godly (and can supplement DEX and/or FTH builds). For instance, the eye laser isn't cheap unless it's an ARC/FTH build (one-shot stun in PvP). Everything FTH can do ARC can do better.

Also why the heck does the dragon communion seal (the ARC seal) outdamage all the others?

Then there's more incantations that also are better for ARC like bloodflame blade, swarm of flies, and the blood claws which actually has combo potential. Oh yeah and lightning ashes of war scale with DEX. It's like FromSoft wants you to just spec DEX/ARC and min FTH and press the I win button via bleed and madness.

I have avoided ARC so far, going from pure FTH to STR/FTH (and I've avoided Blasphemous Blade since it's OP for PVE). I haven't even purchased rot breath.

FromSoft really doesn't like faith haha. 3 was faith's peak and only after DLC. I suppose 1 was good IF you used Tranquil Walk of Peace (which I did not).

Granted I still win a lot of PvP with STR/FTH but only because I have too many hours across games. You have to play better than someone with a meta build.

stop telling people to play broken bleed meta. tc wants to play faith.

[Malevolent Tapir]

a lot of the bosses are holy resistant. grab a faith scaling flame weapon asap as backup if going melee if nothing else

[Nerevar]

Escrito originalmente por Kyutaru:

Elden Beast

Absorptions:

Phy (Sta): 12
Phy (Sla): 12
Phy (Str): 12
Phy (Thr): 12
Magic: 49
Fire: 49
Lightning: 49
Holy: 97

Resistances:

poison: Immune
scarlet rot: Immune
hemmorage: Immune
frostbite: Immune
Death: Immune



... Bring buffs.

bring pest threads. YOU WIN. EFFORTLESSLY. it tears that boss apart. seriously. faith can bypass nearly all resistence issues you just need to use the right incantation in the right situation. its less braindead than magic but not less effective if used right.

seriously the amount if plain bs and total clueless missinformation people gave the tc here is insane.

[Apanatchanka]

black flame and lighting spear are very strong, they allowed me to roll on many bosses from early to late game. I used faith/int build tho. but i think pure faith is totaly possible

[MisterRed]

Escrito originalmente por Nerevar:

Escrito originalmente por Tannhauser:

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

not true.

Escrito originalmente por 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.

untrue aswell. faith is versatile. offense works just aswell as defense.

Escrito originalmente por Quadsword:

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

false. you can just use a different element with faith to bypass boss resistences.


so much missinformation in 1 thread.

tc youre playing it wrong.

first off. dont use the flame spells early on. instead do this : get to the artists shack grace in liurnia. just to have a checkpoint. you can just ride over there. no bosses needed. then get on torrent again and just circle around the single golden knight south of that grace. he walks along the road. he is strong but you can just kill him with ranged attacks from torrent. just keep your distance and stay moveing around him. once he dies loot the prayerbook he drops.

bring it to the turtle at the church of vows. buy LIGHTING SPEAR incantation from him afterwards and HONED BOLT.

congratz. you now have 2 offensive faith spells that do not suck. the spear is your breed and butter and the other is a spammable offensive tool once the first cast is made (or bypassed by casting something faster first) but it can only be effectively used on even ground. for anything above or below you and for bosses use lighting spear.

if the enemy is stronger charge the spear up. dont do this on fast agile bosses.

get the godslayer seal from stormveil castle. best seal for the start. get the faith talisman from liurnia while you go to the shack. its found literally on the way in ruin. nearly unguarded. bam 5 extra faith for the beginning.

use your new lighting powers to tear the early game apart. make sure you got plenty of fp and flasks for it.

use the cipher pata as your backup tool in case you run out of magic or have to kill weaklings. dont waste spears on weaklings. the cipher is a dual weapon found in roundmemehold. just jump down and run to the left inside to loot it. requires 30 faith to use tough. dont have to kill invader to grab it.

dont use holy ashes with weapons. most of them suck. in generel you wont need much melee anymore once you got lighting spear.

hope that helps. anyone who says offensive faith sucks is doing it wrong. like really. its super good if used correctly.

get frenzy burst as a long range spell for snipeing aswell requires a small trip to the eye of sauron village. no bosses needed tough.

get arcane to 12 aswell. and get rotten breath. apply rotten breath to boss. restore fp. start lobbing lighting spears till its dead. it just works.

if someone tells you this does no dmg compared to bleed builds : ignore em. anything does no dmg currently compared as bleed is broken and will get nerfed into oblivion soon.

Alright, a lot of this I can do pretty quickly, but I do have a few questions.

1. Whats the suggested Faith end level? If I want to primarily be a caster do I want 60-70 like I had for my strength and dex builds, or is it lower or higher?

2. As I mentioned in another post, I wanted to do a form of cosplay via the finger maidens, and the Winged Scythe's description and visual has a look I like, so is that a viable weapon, or is this a foolish ambition to put to rest.

3. Is there a way to bypass Stormveil to enter Liurnia? Because as I mentioned, for the first time ever, I am struggling even with Margit.

Otherwise this seems like solid advice, and I'll begin working on it in game

[Climhazzard]

You're using 3 spells and you've already concluded faith sucks even though there's like a hundred more? Anyhow, several of the lightning spells are solid, I wouldn't count on holy to much though since all the important bosses resist most of it.

[Nerevar]

pure faith isnt just possible. its pretty crazy. and WAY easier than most melee builds aswell if played right.

like i got trough nearly the WHOLE game as a level 40 faith only char (12 arc tough for rotten breath but that was only 3 levels anyway) and only leveled up faith despite this. 2-3 points into mind for 1 extra lighting spear use per fp bar. and now get this :
my upgrade levels are : +3 special and +8 regular ONLY.
lighting spear destroys most bosses.
pest threads destroys anything thats BIG. fire giant got torn a new one by this incantation. same for any dragon or bigger enemy.
for early game groups of enemys use rotten breath. base arc is all you need to make it effective if your seal scales with faith so will the spell. later you can use giantsflame for groups aswell to safe some fp.

people who say offensive spell faith is crap dont know how to play the game clearly. or they think you must melee with faith weapons all the time for some odd reason.

[Codester]

Faith is garbage. It's a set of skills meant for hybriding with other things. Pure faith is literally the worst build in the game.