Q: sacred seals on either hand

[vsrs]

I equipped a sacred seal on each hand, so I can use the left hand's seal to cast incantations such as bloodflame blade on my sword (right hand), and the right hand's seal to cast incantations such as immutable shield on my shield (left hand). The only problem is, I lose the effect of one incantation, when I switch to the seal for that hand to apply an incantation to the weapon on the other hand (I hope that makes sense?).

To clarify: my current equipped weapons are as follows:
- left hand: shield, longbow, sacred seal (used to cast bloodflame blade on the sword)
- right hand: sword, staff, sacred seal (used to cast immutable shield on the shield)

I'm guessing this behaviour is due to the game cancelling an incantation applied to any weapon if I switch to a different weapon on that hand?

It's not a big problem for me: I'm happy enough with this setup, I was kind of hoping I could have incantations active on both the sword and shield simultaneously, but it seems that they're mutually exclusive.

[CazadorDeLobo]

Switching to a different weapon removes the temporary buffs on it. You cannot dual-cast left-hand and right-hand buffs with spells, but you can buff your weapon in a few other ways, like with resin or ash of war. I recommend keeping the seal on the right hand for offensive use and to use the shield.

This game handles weapon buffs very poorly compared to previous games; this is the one area of the game that would be improved dramatically if detailed stats and summaries for spells existed.

[519B.]

*You could use a higher ele res shield then buff it with shield grease for guard boost to avoid having to spell buff your shield

[CazadorDeLobo]

I forgot shield grease was a thing because I don't use shields but otherwise that sounds viable. It's a pretty gimmicky combination, all things considered, but I understand the appeal of the same colors/effects for both shield and weapon.

Try Cragblade or War Cry on the weapon, if you prioritize incants on the shield. These allow you to apply a weapon buff even if the weapon is an elemental affinity, giving a massive boost to your R2s and crits(as well as normal attacks, but those especially get huge multiplicative bonuses)

[vsrs]

Thanks for the information, everyone. So basically I can use incantations on either left or right hand weapon (assuming the weapon is capable of receiving the incantation, that is), and compensate for this by using some other source of temporary buff on the other hand's weapon.