STR/FAITH build tips pls

[Archdeacon Monseigneur]

so im running a bit of a "handicap" build for this playthrough.
the idea is that i can't use any weapons that require somber smithing stones, so obviously my variety of weapon choice is limited.

i'm halfway through the game (got to altus plateau) and i am very aware that holy/str builds (the socalled paladin build) start to fall off at this point in the game, but i want to keep trying for a bit while longer, at least until i hit a proverbial wall that soft-forces me to go with a 'lamer' build.

i considered going for a fire build in case my holy build falls off a cliff, since some fire incantations and weapon skills scale with strength and faith as well.
my 2nd backup plan is to go with the moonlight greatsword and swap to a frost oriented strength/int build if it all goes bad (yes im aware this breaks the "No somber weapon"-rule).

so anyway here's my current build:
Vigor: 60
Mind: 13
Endurance: 24
Strength: 30
Dexterity: 16
Intelligence: 9
Faith: 18
Arcane: 9

armor is mostly fashion-souls, but given my vigor level and crabs/opaline tear, physical damage negation is not an issue - doing damage, though, very much is.

i'm using a Knight's Greatsword with Heavy Affinity for now with Sacred Sword ashes as it is a nice quick weapon art and has been very solid up to this point, but its starting to fall off in damage quite severely.

if i want to make this sword/art work for a bit longer, what stats should i pump? should i swap affinity?
it has a B scaling in strength with the heavy affinity which is not too bad and not too good, i suppose.
should i swap it to sacred affinity? (i heard this is a bad idea due to enemy flat defenses).

some tips would be appreciated.

[Mr.America]

Altus plateau? Oh boi do I have the build for you. Go get the great stars greathammer and the icon shield greatshield both in NW altus plateau, find prayerful strike in the moat and infuse the hammer with heavy. You shall never die again :D It's also perfectly fitting that your damage stats aren't that high yet, as attacking more with that weapon is beneficial for your health.

[Angel]

80 strength 80 faith get yourself a longhaft axe and SMASH people with steel and the power of god

[Archdeacon Monseigneur]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Mr.America:

Altus plateau? Oh boi do I have the build for you. Go get the great stars greathammer and the icon shield greatshield both in NW altus plateau, find prayerful strike in the moat and infuse the hammer with heavy. You shall never die again :D It's also perfectly fitting that your damage stats aren't that high yet, as attacking more with that weapon is beneficial for your health.

yeah i was considering getting that one as well. i've seen what a monster that weapon can be.

however, i'm in no rush to get it (i know two are available in the same playthrough).

for now i'm looking for tips on how to make this current sword do a bit more damage, i've invested +16 smithing stones into it and im kinda low on the good ol' supply atm.

the reason i like this sword is that it has a nice smooth combo moveset (not the clunky colossal-type combo set that most greatswords have for some reason)

i'll go out of my way to get more miner's bell bearings soon, but the 5 and 6 are from mountaintops of the giants which is a whole zone away atm.

[Zogtar]

Your stats are perfect for an Envoy's Longhorn.

[Archdeacon Monseigneur]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Angel:

80 strength 80 faith get yourself a longhaft axe and SMASH people with steel and the power of god

hehe i am far from being able to invest that amount of points into my stats atm :))
maybe i'll farm the bird in mohgwyn, but thats borderline cheating so i'm trying to restrain myself.

[Archdeacon Monseigneur]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Zogtar:

Your stats are perfect for an Envoy's Longhorn.

But consider the Envoy's Greathorn. Is a fun strong doot.

Haeligtree still far off atm my guy... oh wait, i could go into the capital and get one, i suppose.
might consider it, thanks :)

bubbles are silly doe.

[Argonaut_Jay]

My main is a RL150 STR/FTH (55/35 with both talismans to bump it to 60/40) Paladin and while it isn't OP like a lot of the boring builds or status builds it still pumps great damage and I had zero issues getting through the game with it. Just use your incants for buffing yourself instead of damage. I use flame art on my main and my backup uses heavy so I can buff it with holy when needed. If you have other questions along the way feel free to hmu \[T]/

[Key]

That's one of my favourite build, but here's the deal:

The thing with Str/Faith isn't that the build falls off lategame, it's that the more you lean into it, the more of a tank you become, because that's how FS intended combining FTH/STR to work.

The falloff of holy damage is there by design because as FTH/STR you have both STR passively increasing physical defense, while having access to Golden Vow, Black Flame's protection, Flame Grant Me Strenght and Protection of the Erdtree and your Physik flask.

Lategame Paladins can get up to 60% physical/elem resist, add hp regen on top and a poise perfume and you can straight up manhandle anything after Maliketh without even trying to dodge, if your damage was higher, the game would turn into a practical joke.

Now, you have two options, upping FTH for requirements and STR for scaling or vice versa.

With the self imposed no-somber rule you effectively removed 90% of good faith options in the game, Siluria's Tree, Epitaph, Miquella's Knight, Golden Order GS, Ordovis' GS, and the Erdtree Spear. Which is kinda shooting yourself in the foot for this type of build.

What you have left is mostly Flame Art on what would be STR weapons, which leads me to ask, why not just fully lean into STR while using faith to reach the requirements for the incantations you want to use? You only have 13 mind after all, it's not like you can cast a lot.

Best option in your situation is a Heavy Great Stars that you can enchant with Blackflame blade, thus causing it to apply both bleed and the %damage from blackflame, it'd be ridiculously poweful to take down anything wit high HP.

That said, if you prefer greatswords, I'd go with a Flamberge for the same Bleed+BF and because it looks awesome, but Banished Knight's is straight up an upgrade to the Knight's GS.

[Archdeacon Monseigneur]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Argonaut_Jay:

My main is a STR/FTH (55/35 with both talismans to bump it to 60/40) Paladin and while it isn't OP like a lot of the boring builds or status builds it still pumps great damage and I had zero issues getting through the game with it. Just use your incants for buffing yourself instead of damage. I use flame art on my main and my backup uses heavy so I can buff it with holy when needed. If you have other questions along the way feel free to hmu \[T]/

what talismans are those exactly?
radagon's soreseal and ???

i've been neglecting faith pretty severely up to this point, so that's my mistake, clearly. i've resorted to putting golden vow on a dagger and just buffing myself using that, but the weapon art doesn't last anywhere near as long as the actual incantatation it seems to me, so i'll be getting that next for sure.

generally i dislike the fact that the way to play the game is applying a million different buffs each encounter and be careful not to overwrite them with another, but i guess i'll just have to bite the bullet on that.

[Zogtar]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Archdeacon Monseigneur:

bubbles are silly doe.

Yeah, they silly.

But they hurt.

[Archdeacon Monseigneur]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Key:

That's one of my favourite build, but here's the deal:

The thing with Str/Faith isn't that the build falls off lategame, it's that the more you lean into it, the more of a tank you become, because that's how FS intended combining FTH/STR to work.

The falloff of holy damage is there by design because as FTH/STR you have both STR passively increasing physical defense, while having access to Golden Vow, Black Flame's protection, Flame Grant Me Strenght and Protection of the Erdtree and your Physik flask.

Lategame Paladins can get up to 60% physical/elem resist, add hp regen on top and a poise perfume and you can straight manhandle anything after Maliketh without even trying to dodge, if your damage was higher, the game would turn into a practical joke.

Now, you have two options, upping FTH for requirements and STR for scaling or vice versa.

With the self imposed no-somber rule you effectively removed 90% of good faith options in the game, Siluria's Tree, Epitaph, Miquella's Knight, Golden Order GS, Ordovis' GS, and the Erdtree Spear. Which is kinda shooting yourself in the foot for this type of build.

What you have left is mostly Flame Art on what would be STR weapons, which leads me to ask, why not just fully lean into STR while using faith to reach the requirements for the incantations you want to use? You only have 13 mind after all, it's not like you can cast a lot.

Best option in your situation is a Heavy Great Stars that you can enchant with Blackflame blade, thus causing it to apply both bleed and the %damage from blackflame, it'd be ridiculously poweful to take down anything wit high HP.

That said, if you prefer greatswords, I'd go with a Flamberge for the same Bleed+BF and because it looks awesome, but Banished Knight's is straight up an upgrade to the Knight's GS.

hmm yeah, the idea wasn't so much to make a tank build as much as making a solid mid build where the "tanking" mostly rely on crabs and opaline crystal tear, which takes me to 60%+ phys mitigation, and then i'll just swap items/talismans depending on the encounter if i need a specific kind of elemental mitigation as the game rarely throws more than a maximum of two at you at a time.

the self-imposed "no somber" rule is not a hill i'm going to die on btw. i'll forego this self-imposed rule if i feel like it, i just thought it would spice things up a bit to do something other than "blasphemous sword go brrrrr" for once.

my first playthrough i was practically carried by mohgs spear and rivers of blood and it honestly felt really lame, so i'm on a bit of a redemption arc this time around.

that being said; i've been avoiding bleed status weapons, with the one exception being the great stars mace (which i don't have yet).
the blackflame+bleed+bonk does sound like a very powerful and strong combo though.

i'd be interested in getting a banished knight's greatsword.
any tips on the best spot to farm one?
i know the droprate can be a bit scuffed based on what i've heard.

i suppose i'll just invest everything into strength for now and see where it takes me.
at least until i hit 60-80.

EDIT: btw nvm i got the banished knight sword, 3 attempts lul :))

[LT2483]

Get yourself a 100% phys block, high guard boost shield, then do Corhyn's quest until you get Immutable Shield. Then use any poke weapon. You can now tank basically everything in the game, and attack at the same time in near complete safety. Str/Fai is one of the most busted stat combos in the game because of that one incantation - no compromises needed. And it just happens to work without needing somber items too. The only thing is that if you consider the 19 int requirement breaking your Str/Fai thing (not clear if that stat focus is one of your rules and/or how flexible it is).

[Archdeacon Monseigneur]

Oprindeligt skrevet af LT2483:

Get yourself a 100% phys block, high guard boost shield, then do Corhyn's quest until you get Immutable Shield. Then use any poke weapon. You can now tank basically everything in the game, and attack at the same time in near complete safety. Str/Fai is one of the most busted stat combos in the game because of that one incantation - no compromises needed. And it just happens to work without needing somber items too. The only thing is that if you consider the 19 int requirement breaking your Str/Fai thing (not clear if that stat focus is one of your rules and/or how flexible it is).

nah there's no stat limitations, i'll go out of my way to get stat requirements such as INT if i find an interesting weapon.
thanks for the tip :)

[Necrotic]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Archdeacon Monseigneur:

Oprindeligt skrevet af Argonaut_Jay:

My main is a STR/FTH (55/35 with both talismans to bump it to 60/40) Paladin and while it isn't OP like a lot of the boring builds or status builds it still pumps great damage and I had zero issues getting through the game with it. Just use your incants for buffing yourself instead of damage. I use flame art on my main and my backup uses heavy so I can buff it with holy when needed. If you have other questions along the way feel free to hmu \[T]/

what talismans are those exactly?
radagon's soreseal and ???

i've been neglecting faith pretty severely up to this point, so that's my mistake, clearly. i've resorted to putting golden vow on a dagger and just buffing myself using that, but the weapon art doesn't last anywhere near as long as the actual incantatation it seems to me, so i'll be getting that next for sure.

generally i dislike the fact that the way to play the game is applying a million different buffs each encounter and be careful not to overwrite them with another, but i guess i'll just have to bite the bullet on that.

insted of asking everyone to do everything for u why not fextra and see ur self. very demanding.

[Archdeacon Monseigneur]

now that i got the banished knight sword, i'm sort of out of luck when it comes to smithing stones 5 and 6, any of ya'll wanna either trade me some or help me mule from my main?
i got a gazillion of each on him, but for obvious reasons i can't transfer them without a helping hand.