What does faith do ?

[Azaréa]

I need to start by saying that this is my first soul-like game.

I am ~8h in, and just found my first piece of equipement which requires 22 Faith, and it is a regular "pavise shield" (google translated this one, "pavois" in french). All the shields I found so far were strength-based, and I assumed it would always be the case but I was wrong.
Should I upgrade my faith just for that ? which kind of gameplay comes with Faith ? magic ? is it viable to build strength+faith (I'm interested in a 1H weapon & shield gameplay) ?

Thanks

[Kuncussion]

I'm about lvl 12 with a faith based character right now and honestly, outside of extracting one rune that looks like I'm throwing a flaming hammer, faith doesn't feel very magic based. Seems to just revolve around smashing heads with a blunt weapon. There are both hybrid str/faith weapons and shields, though. Game is far too fresh to say what's *viable* right now, in what this game has for an endgame.

[akaplan1]

I feel like faith is supposed to represent cleric style characters. Blunt weaponry, healing, etc.

[K. Hauzer]

Moonblade 26agi26faith going for that at lvl 23

[Phishfood]

One of the reasons we should be able to respec, not knowing what the stat requirements ahead of time can seriously screw a build

[K. Hauzer]

Originally posted by Phishfood:

One of the reasons we should be able to respec, not knowing what the stat requirements ahead of time can seriously screw a build

Why u complain in every thread? chill

[VDRSK]

I found a rapier that was faith scaling but that is one of the only ones i've come across

[Azaréa]

I don't think I'm ready to dump 10+ points un faith just in case someday I'll looot a str+faith weapon. Maybe I'll try later on another character.

[Soulstinger]

I havnt found a faith-base npc or vendor, only come across the odd weapon here or there with faith as a shared stat. I was hoping for an int/faith 'heretic' build, and indeed found a "Sinners Staff" but I dont see anything concrete laid out for it...

[Zorro]

Originally posted by Phishfood:

One of the reasons we should be able to respec, not knowing what the stat requirements ahead of time can seriously screw a build

I don't think that part matters. My first build is now level 28. I accidentally put 1 point into dex and faith before I realized the weapons were very similar to Dark Souls in how they leveled and in their weapon art. But it's not that big of a deal because I now have a solid idea of the weapon genres the game offers. I've placed interesting looking weapons into the community chest to try early on in future builds.

I sometimes kinda wish we could respec to experiment with other weapons, but it appears Moon Studios has designed the game loop to be based on realms, where you use your community chest to put weapons you're curious about into and then pull out in another build type. It appears to be baked into the desired game loop. So if they do end up with a respec function at the Watcher or some such, it'll likely have a significant cost associated with it.

I kinda wish I could experiment with runes more without bricking my weapon, but I've started extracting the inherent runes from various other weapons I can't use or don't want (thus destroying the weapon). Once I have a particular rune, I'll experiment with it on an un-upgraded version of my preferred weapon - if I like what it does, I'll extract the rune again and apply it to my upgraded weapon. I admit I'm not fond of such a meandering gameplay loop, but by the time you reach the end boss in Crucible (who I haven't managed to kill yet) you get a pretty solid idea of drop frequency and can know what weapons can easily be replaced and what ones are less likely to drop.

My first character is a strength intelligence build (str 42, int 26) and my primary weapon is a fully upgraded enchanted claymore, which so far still has the best 2-handed weapon art for my particular play style that I've found (lots of pokey + slashy combos each in a sequence that I like). But I made the mistake of upgrading an enchanted version of the weapon instead of a plain version, so have very limited rune and gem slots. I won't be making that mistake again. If I had to do the build over again I would have skipped intelligence. My secondary weapon is strength + intelligence and I like the weapon art a lot (can't think of the name of it off the top of my head - sorry), but it'd be better suited a 26 + 26 build with points dropped elsewhere for tanking or focus.

[Sgt.JESUS]

That flaming hammer throw is very good, only 1 point in faith to use that hammer and boy it destroys things, much better then the rust sword rune. Most of my first time characters in a souls game are screwed anyway, i dont know anything, dont know enemy movesets or where they are, although this game is very good with the random respawn, i never know what will show up at the same area i cleared a few hours ago.

[Zorro]

Originally posted by Sgt.JESUS:

That flaming hammer throw is very good, only 1 point in faith to use that hammer and boy it destroys things, much better then the rust sword rune. Most of my first time characters in a souls game are screwed anyway, i dont know anything, dont know enemy movesets or where they are, although this game is very good with the random respawn, i never know what will show up at the same area i cleared a few hours ago.

Pretty much. I haven't screwed my own character over too much since I've still managed to reach the final boss in Crucible (only tried him once so haven't killed him yet). I suck at souls games but still have fun with them. But my experience has always been that the first build is where you learn what not to do. This isn't Skyrim where anyone who uses the term "build" is branding themselves as dingbats lol.

[Supreme Emperor Lord As Asriel]

Equipment that requires Faith is basically Religion Armor