Did I accidentally pick a horrible build?

[CrescentMouse]

I wanted to do a Holy Shield Warrior where I used a longsword, shield, and lots of holy magic. But it seems like every boss is resistant to holy. And every boss moves to quickly and attacks so often I can never utilize my shield and do counter-attacks after they hit my shield or anything? Is this a common issue and I just accidentally picked the worst build, or am I just bad

[GloriousZote]

Let's put it this way, some bosses aren't just 40%, but 80% resistant to holy.

Yeah, holy is pretty much only useful in fighting undead.

[CrescentMouse]

Originally posted by GloriousZote:

Let's put it this way, some bosses aren't just 40%, but 80% resistant to holy.

Yeah, holy is pretty much only useful in fighting undead.

Sooo... I shouldn't really bother putting my points into Faith and grabbing spells that do Holy, and should probably stop having my sword set to sacred? Is lightning any good..?

[GloriousZote]

Originally posted by CrescentMouse:

Originally posted by GloriousZote:

Let's put it this way, some bosses aren't just 40%, but 80% resistant to holy.

Yeah, holy is pretty much only useful in fighting undead.

Sooo... I shouldn't really bother putting my points into Faith and grabbing spells that do Holy, and should probably stop having my sword set to sacred? Is lightning any good..?

Faith also has a good amount of other types of damage, lots of fire spells, as well as some that deal physical damage.

But yeah, unless you're entering a dungeon with undead enemies, you're better off with another affinity

[Mander]

Not really?
I mean, true, there are precious few bosses specifically weak to holy, but if you’re raising faith anyway, you can swap your incantations from holy to fire/lightning without hurdles.
My first run was a DEX/Faith build, which in hindsight, was one of the most challenging build I could have aimed for: nonetheless, I too, went for the holy paladin knight… the only difference, was that my build was geared for “burn them in holy fire/lightning” instead of a tank.
So, a big weapon (spearsword), crucible and dragon cult incantations.
Elden Ring, especially in early game, doesn’t really lend itself to hybrid build: a focused scope will reward you more.

[CrescentMouse]

Originally posted by Mander:

Not really?
I mean, true, there are precious few bosses specifically weak to holy, but if you’re raising faith anyway, you can swap your incantations from holy to fire/lightning without hurdles.
My first run was a DEX/Faith build, which in hindsight, was one of the most challenging build I could have aimed for: nonetheless, I too, went for the holy paladin knight… the only difference, was that my build was geared for “burn them in holy fire/lightning” instead of a tank.
So, a big weapon, crucible and dragon cult incantations.
Elden Ring, especially in early game, doesn’t really lend itself to hybrid build: a focused scope will reward you more.

yeah i'm doing DEX/Faith too, though mainly focused on the faith where I wanted to have a neat lil Sacred Sword. Using the Sacred Slash skill and Shield Skills with supporting faith spells like Golden Vow, Heal, and Protection Spells. But now knowing that a few important bosses are very resistant to Holy I'll have to figure out a different Ash of War to swap to and other spells to use that still sorta fit the theme of my character. I was thinking Lightning but I don't really know where to find any lightning type stuff, I've never even seen a lightning ash of war so I bet it's p late game

[Mander]

Good Ashes of War for fire/lightning/holy are as follow:

FIRE:
- Flame of the Redmanes (found in Caelid): poise breaker
- Prelate's Charge (found in endgame): great for BIG weapons

Lightning:
- Gransax Bolt: found only in the capital, it's an improved version of the bolt incantation. Sadly is locked to the Spear of Gransax. VERY good for sniping (to the point I don't need a ranged option)

Holy:
- Golden Land (become today your static artillery position). Sadly can be found in the deeproot depths

For Incantations, you may be interested in everything related to the Crucible Knights (phys damage and poise damage) and those of the dragon cult (not draconic communions, those scale on 2 stats and requires a different build).

[Amins]

I don't know, I don't think it's impossible to do a Holy build. On one of my NG+ runs I did a dual Sacred Relic Sword build also making use of Stone of Gurranq (6 deathroots for Gurranq) for a pretty good focused ranged spell and Black Flame for enemies weak to fire. It went pretty well. It's not as if bosses are completely immune to holy, and weapons that do holy damage also do physical. It just may not be as effective as switching to something else.

[Hadley333]

I did fine with my first playthrough with Holy. I was getting my butt kicked but it was because I was severely underleveled and needed to put much more points in vitality than I'm used to with past FS games.

[Aertes]

I don't know what you mean. I beat a hole game focused in defensive shield technices and counterattacks and it worked very well. Some of the bosses are better to dodge than block, true, but I even takend through Radagon easily. As for the holy damage thing, I've focused in magic damage once and went well, so maybe you just have to increase your damage output more efficiently?

[Krazy Wallet]

Your starting build really doesn't matter. You can evolve into other types of builds quite easily. It's more of a question of what you want your starting weapon and spells to be. As many have said, holy damage can be lackluster against many enemies due to the theme and story of the game. However, faith is not limited to holy damage. It includes fire and lightning damage types in the forms of pyromancy and dragon incantation.

Many weapons also have split damage. If you're using a sword that has holy and physical damage, you'll likely be perfectly fine. I'd keep a backup weapon with fire damage for the times you go against something highly resistant to holy. Alternatively, you could powerstance two weapons with different infusions, which would cover the vast majority of fights you face.

Keep in mind, there may be bosses that are simply good counters to faith builds. For instance, the Godskin Noble is resistant to both fire and holy damage while partially being resistant to lightning, making this fight much harder for faith builds. Having a damage that does slashing damage, however, makes him a piece of cake . Another thing you could do is keep a weapon uninfused and utilize greases to give it a temporary effect that is dynamic to the boss' weakness.

Most archetype builds are extremely viable. Just take a little time determining what your backup plans are and whether you have a good set of alternatives.

[Vinnolo]

use fire and holy, fire to deal with enemies with high holy resistance

[Sabaithal]

Holy isn't the best choice for DPS in general. Most holy-based spells are better as support magic, healing, buffing, regen, etc.

However you have points in FAI already, and there is plenty of incantations that do damage other than holy, such as flame, blackflame, beastial, lightning, etc.

Lightning spells might not be a bad pick, as few things are resistant to them, and some of the earlier spells are both cheap and quick to cast.

[Lu2]

Originally posted by CrescentMouse:

Originally posted by GloriousZote:

Let's put it this way, some bosses aren't just 40%, but 80% resistant to holy.

Yeah, holy is pretty much only useful in fighting undead.

Sooo... I shouldn't really bother putting my points into Faith and grabbing spells that do Holy, and should probably stop having my sword set to sacred? Is lightning any good..?

holy , ligtining (dex), fire (str) benefits from faith in infusions . just use these for faith based characters but that doesnt mean you cant use frost infusions or whatever . just worse scaling . they will be just lesser effective bt still worthy unless you completly ignore dex or str

just checks scalings when you performing infusions and yes you can add holy blade skill on thunder weapons . which is cool

this game is more about learning combat and honing reflexes then stats . dont get discouranged . takes hundreds and hundres of hours to actualy learn mechanics hard way

[the fakir]

Weren't holy damage spells bugged as well?

[Sabaithal]

As far as holy spells go, honestly triple rings of light are pretty underrated. Extremely helpful for crowd control, good in PvP, decent damage, and can be chain-cast.