Best build for sword of faith

[Gengisgame]

I'm looking into Blade Dancer and was wondering what would be the best build for also utilizing Sword of Faith, I am not set on using this alone, I just like the idea of having it as an option.

I plan taking on using Heinrix for Biomancer buffs if that free's me from needing to take Biomancer on the Rogue Trader.

[dgresevfan]

I was just trying to work out the same thing. I assume taking abilities that boost force weapon damage would help?

Strength?

I'm not sure what else is relevant. I have seen elsewhere people complaining about sword of faith being underwhelming (looks like a regular metal sword for one thing).

Maybe flamer damage boost considering the sword also acts like a flamer?

[Gengisgame]

I was hoping there would have been enough changes since then that it would have changed. I also heard the bladedancer ability that lowers ap cost works with it.

[Balekai]

You will be hardset finding a Meta around it (not because it's not good). It's just off the beaten path for most builds. You can however build around it and become a melee god.

First the Description:

"Sword of Faith
Sanctioned Psyker
Sanctioned Psyker - Sanctic

This psychic power costs 50 momentum and can only be used when momentum is 175 or higher.

Until the end of combat, the weapon in the psyker's hand is replaced by a sword made of sheer will.

This sword has a single-target attack and an area attack (like a two-handed sword) and can be used to release a cone of fire or a line of fire (like a flamethrower).
The damage of this sword is the same as that of Purge Soul (with all the same bonuses).

If the psyker used a force weapon, all the bonuses from that force weapon remain. For the purposes of talents and other bonuses, the Sword of Faith counts as a force weapon.

This power can be used again, increasing the damage of the sword by +psyker's resolve."

Things to understand about the Sword in order to properly build around it:


- It uses Momentum as a resource to cast, and on recast, it adds your resolve on new cast to the weapons base damage. This can easily be 20-40+ more base damage per recast. Even though Sanctic Psyker has great access to Resolve building, Sword of Faith builds benefit greatly from Archetypes and builds built around having high base Momentum to get the Sword out ASAP.
- The damage is all direct damage (cannot be reduced by any means, just dodged/parried etc.)
- it's a one handed weapon.
- It does not do burning damage on any of it's attacks. These are not flamethrowe attacks, they just act like them for attack squares pattern.
- The first two attacks have minor veil degradation, the flamer-like ones do not. Sort of like Staff powers and the latter attacks not having veil degradation is likely an oversight.
- All the attacks count as Melee attacks. Essentially a "pseudo ranged melee weapon" with Line and cone attacks. NONE of the attacks count as ranged.
- Melee weapon feats and Force feats as mentioned in description, all work with Sword of Faith as it's a Force Weapon.
- As mentioned in the description, combines with the bonuses of your Force Weapon(s), "absorbing it" on cast and until end of combat. A thing to note is that for something like the new Blade Dancer or a dual sword build, you don't want Force Mainhand and Offhand, because both will be absorbed and you will no longer quality for dual sword/wielding feats.
- The earliest you can get the Sword is level 17 because it's a Major Power, requiring you to take at least 1 Sanctic Psyker power (Shield of the Emperor is the best) or two Sanctics if you started with another school, while also having taken Psyker Minoris and Majoris Talents before level 17.
- There is a special Protectorate reward from babying the anomalous function on Kiava Gamma which turns out to be a Archeotech near AI of sorts, that when you play your cards right with colony events not attacking it (it's a non corrupted AI/function that's successfully has protected itself with "Data Angels."), will give you an item to solve a Paradox as a reward. This item is a data slate you can solve by passing a whopping -167 logic test (get ready to savescum). If you pass it on a character that uses it, you will be able to use a Momentum ability for free. That means Heroic Acts, Heroic Act abilities on thing slike Staffs, and of course, Sword of Faith. Building a Sword of Faith character with high Intelligence that manages to solve the Paradox, will be able automatically cast Sword of Faith for free on Turn 1 (EDIT Oct 02/24: No this doesn't work Sword is not a Heroic Act. Paradox Solved DOES synergy in a super OP fashion with Executioner's Carnival of Misery with upgrades III and I. I also works very well with Bladedancer Heroic Act that can easily down bosses upgraded for debuffing, and extra Deaths form Above + weapon damage until the end of combat).


With all that in mind, then you can build your Sword of Faith character.


Here's a 1-17 build example I recently posted elsewhere and saved using Bladeancer (with some edits due to changes in the build), which will have max intelligence, high resolve due to Be Smart and can qualify for that paradox gimmick later with logic stacking items + Jinx:

"BLADEDANCER Sanctic Psyker BUILD

All of the Sword of Faith "melee attacks" including Flame Line and Cone, are indeed melee attacks (tested yet again). And no even though these are flamer-like abilities there's no burning like a normal flamethrower (boooooooo! would have been great for Executioner!). The unique attacks all benefit from Sweeping Motions (-1 AP cost to melee attacks) from Bladedancer. We can hit pretty much anything on our local screen around our Blade Dancer at any time with this Sword as if using a Two Handed Flamer. That means not as much need for Movement or using Death from above to get around. That's a lot of potential extra damage and "logistical versatility." :p

More importantly Sword of Faith has unlimited direct damage scaling (direct damage cannot be reduced for any reason too). If you keep casting the sword as you gain momentum it adds your current Resolve to the sword's base damage each time. Mid to late game Sword of Faith can be recast like 2-4 times in a battle, adding dozens of extra base Direct Damage each time. ON TOP OF THAT you have damage multipliers with the Purge Soul mechanics against Xenos, Heretics, Daemons and dudes you have hit already (like with Blade Dance hitting multiple times maybe? Who needs burn DoT?! "I do..." SHUT UP!).

Anyways build:

Levels 1-15 Sanctic/Bio

Homeworld: Voidborn - We still get 10% Pseudo dodge, dodge reduction, parry. crit chance etc etc. with Jinx. It actually adds 10% Pseudo anything to all nearby characters. Meaning It will add 10% chance to nearby enemies too unfortunately when we're healthy (and debuff us all 10% when not). I have found that it benefits the party a lot more than enemies and is basically a wash when it would hurt. If you really don't want to buff enemies, use Word of Faith Flame Line and cone form a distance. Better yet, because Jinx is not any of those actual stats, it can't be reduced by debuffs.

Just going over some more stuff I tackled before - Use "Be Smart" to move all Fellowship mechanics and skill scaling to Intelligence (Executioners use Intel stat later and for one of our main executioner talents for toxins). There's other Intelligence scaling talents too and our Bladedancer becomes a skill monkey if wanted this way. Also Medicae gets a big boost and we can skip on switching it to Weapon Skill which will likely be lower than Intelligence most of the game.

I didn't mention all the rerolls with Fortune, Contagious Luck, more Psy Rating with Psalms of Heroes, party wide deflection, armour and healing support (healing later).

The downsides are a lack of an innate Burning souce (there may be an item), very heavy veil degradation (Sword of Faith attacks 1 and 2 cause minor degradation). The upside of degradation can be more XP though, especially early game.

Origin: Psyker - Sanctic

Archetype: Blade Dancer

Starting characteristic Allocation: +10 Weapon Skill, +10 Agility, +10 Intelligence (we will not need Willpower for a while if ever, as everything will scale off Psy Rating and resolve until we enter Biomancy). We will only need Willpower for Invigorate which restores (2 X Psyker's psy rating + WP bonus). If we take it. Enfeeble may be a better bet which has no Willpower scaling either. This will likely mean that dump characteristic points that would go into Willpower will go into something else instead.

Skill Priority: Medicae most important and a must, then possibly Demolition or whatever your team is missing that can be done with Fellowship/Intelligence/Agility. Coercion again since Persuasion isn't an option.

Characteristic Priority: Agility to max, then Weapon Skill to max, then Intelligence for remainder.


Abilities:

Level 1 --> Word of the Emperor (Free from Sanctic. Allows unlimited Resolve stacking. Allows everyone effected to be effected with other word abilities map wide when cast being Shield (deflection/armour), Light (heal) and Hammer of the Emperor (big dmg boost on next hit for all those effected).
Level 6 --> Shield of the Emperor to make the entire team tanky for Act 1.
Level 10 --> Biomancy (and get Biophysical Distortion right after).


Special Talent:

Level 4 --> Death Waltz III for sure so when we use the heroic Act, all our hits reduce enemy Weapon Skill, Armour and Dodge all by -(2+(Agility Bonus/2)) per hit until the end of combat. Boss killing via debuffing. We may pair this with Enfeeble with us or Heinrix.

Level 9 --> Death Waltz II for the 4 free Death from Above charges + an extra Agility bonus damage to any Deaths from Above we do for the rest of combat. Good DPS thereafter, can be used early, and can use the charges to move around and do more damage to say a boss. All those extra Aboves will be opportunities to apply more DoTs.


Talents:

Level 4 --> Spinning Blades (More attacks with Blade dance per Parry on next use. Great damage multiplier for the attack)
Level 5 --> Psyker Minoris
Level 6 --> Sweeping Motions (We need the -1 AP to attacks a lot more than Bio/Pyro build, since Sanctic Words can be AP heavy. ALSO since Sword of Faith is all melee attacks, this reduces the AP cost of them all by 1).
Level 7 --> Jinx (This is tricky to use with melee. While above 50% health ALL ROLLS IN THE GAME are buffed by this. It's 10% more chance doemeverything to Dodge chance, to skill checks in and outside combat. BUT it also buffs anything within 3 squares the same way. Be careful and make sure buffed enemies by this are debuffed greatly yo lower their improved effectiveness with this. While below 50% health it does the opposite. With blade Dancer and our massive amount of attacks, we get way more out of this than our enemies ever will. you can skip this, but your skill checks etc. outside of combat and all your crits etc will go down. also a lot harder to solve the Paradox item for turn one Sword of Faith.
Level 9 --> Psalms of the Emperor (Other than Resolve for Word of the Emperor first cast, all other Psi abilities use Psi Rating at this point, including our toxin damage from the next talent). OR Blessed Scars taking advantage of the Bladedancer talents while we can. With a certain ring found at the Death Cult Sanctum (chest near blood waterfall on a balcony), this can be triggered every round as long as you attack something with melee.
Level 10 --> Biophysical Distortion. (As Sanctic with Psalms of the Emperor we can early game get like 2-6 extra Psy rating, on top of Psy Rating 2. That means our Toxin will be very powerful (3+(3xPsy Rating)) Toxin damage))).
Level 12 --> Be Smart (So we don't have to waste a characteristic and can start on Intelligence and using it for Resolve and all mental/social skill checks).
Level 14 --> Psyker Majoris (A must to gain Sword of Faith on level 17 or Light of the Emperor).

Then into Executioner and take Light of the Emperor at level 17. Then into Sword of Faith thereafter on your next Ability pick in Executioner.

(Edit Oct 02/24: The following on Paradox Solved is incorrect, use with Carnival of Misery upgrades to III then with upgrade I) One last thing. If you're worried about not getting your Sword of Faith early in a fight, that can be rectified mid-late with a certain reward from Colony Protectorate events on Kiava Gamma. You will need to pass something like a -167 Knowledge Check (good thing you're maxing Intelligence every chance you get after Agility and have Jinx). With skill items you should (not so easily) be able to savescum the check and solve the Paradox with a few % chance to succeed. This will give you an ability to use one Momentum ability like a Heroic Acts, or Sword of Faith, for free at the start of combat. When gearing for Sword of Faith, making sure you have a non Force Weapon in your offhand, so it doesn't disappear and get absorbed so you still quality as having two swords. A good opportunity to use a special Primitive Weapon or some such as offhand.

[Gengisgame]

That's a brilliantly detailed breakdown, thank you very much.

I don't have me heart set on any specific second archetype but I'm curious why Executioner?

[Balekai]

Originally posted by Gengisgame:

That's a brilliantly detailed breakdown, thank you very much.

I don't have me heart set on any specific second archetype but I'm curious why Executioner?

A) the most important reason of all. BECAUSE IT'S NEW!

Actually the reason is the crazy damage scaling, utility and synergy with Bladedancer melee attacks, and partially getting around damage penalty to Blade Dance damage by having those attacks apply highly damaging DoTs, that can be exploited with Executioner abilities that cause existing DoTs to apply the DoT damage instantly.

So between Blade Dance attack, Sword of Faith Area, Line and Cone attacks, Biophysical Distortion Toxin based on Psi Rating on all those hits, bleeds on those hit, enemies getting even more Toxin levels/stacks from Executioners' Death in the Air Talent (toxin scaling off of INT being applied to all enemies within 2 squares of an enemy that just died with a toxin on them), we can proliferate tons of DoTs then cause them to explode as an extra attack on top of everything else with Executioner abilities.

The problem with only showing levels 1-15/17ish is that's the easy part of building the character. It's all feat starvation from thereon and I still haven't figured out how i want to proceed. I want a heal like Light of the Emperor which is the best me on for this character as I will have high resolve but really no Willpower investment. And it benefits the whole part. I want Warp Speed too but Heinrix can take care of that if required.

We really need space for Executioner abilities such as these (in order of most importance with the first two being near equal for CC/self buffing):

Reckless Abandon
The Executioner replaces (30% of their maximum wounds) of their wounds with
the same number of temporary wounds until the end of combat.

While the Executioner has temporary wounds, all of their melee attacks and damage-over-time effects deal an additional +(30% of their maximum wounds)% damage.

Massive damage buff. Like huuge when you have lots of Wounds.

Gift of Torment
Until the start of their next turn, the Executioner gains bonuses to their
parameters for each creature (enemy or ally) in combat suffering from the following
damage-over-time effects:

Bleeding: +(TGH bonus / 2)% armour per creature
Burning: +(TGH bonus / 2)% dodge per creature

Toxin: +1 deflection per creature up to a maximum of TGH bonus.

Extra Deflection scaling off toxins per creature. very nice but I might skip this. We already have Shield of the Emperor for 2-4 Deflection on an Agility dodge character.

Pain Resonance
All enemies suffering from damage-over- time effects in a 4-cell radius around the Executioner immediately suffer an extra instance of damage from these effects.

They must also pass a resistance test with a -(Medicae / 5) penalty or suffer an additional negative effect. The effect and type of the resistance test depend on the initial damage-over-time effect.

Bleeding: Agility resistance test, blinded
Burning: Willpower resistance test, slowed
Toxin: Toughness resistance test, staggered

These additional effects are removed at the start of the Executioner's next turn.

Not only is this basically an extra attack essentially, it's mass disable and debuffing with Bleeding and Toxin everywhere.

Where It Hurts
If the target of the Executioner's next successful attack is under any damage-over-time effects, this target will immediately suffer 3 instances of damage from each of these effects (2 instances if the Executioner makes a burst or area attack).

This damage is dealt after all other effects from the attack are applied. Then, all damage-over-time effects are removed from the target. This ability is applied instead of Scourging Strikes and removes all stacks of Forced Repentance.

The ultimate upfront damaging DoT ability from Executioner and be equal a lot of damage and be yet another pseudo attack.

It's just how do you work all of that into the build and when. Psyker/Bladeancer/Executioner is so talent and ability starved it's not funny. You want everything there is to offer lol.

For more Blade Dancer theorycrafting where I forced most of my ideas:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/2186680/discussions/0/4840896594183811997/

[Faray]

I stumbled on this thread and Im glad I did because this seems like a neat idea. I already did a pyro and didn't want to do it again right away so trying santic seems like a fun idea, and i feel like it might work better for iconoclast anyway

[Faray]

Unless they changed it though Sword of Faith doesn't work with Paradox Unlocked so building toward int doesn't really help the build.

Maybe 45 STR would be good for the PSI Breastplate if Viel is an issue, to reduce it or get extra PSI Raiting too.

[Balekai]

Originally posted by Faray:

I stumbled on this thread and Im glad I did because this seems like a neat idea. I already did a pyro and didn't want to do it again right away so trying santic seems like a fun idea, and i feel like it might work better for iconoclast anyway

It's fun so far. The Sanctic Shield of the Emperor helps a lot keeping my team alive Act 1 DLC Cultist quest (The times I forgot to buff I was like WTF HAPPENED? MY DEAD DIED LIKE CHUMPS!! :p :P). The Word of the Emperor spam is also helping the team get super quick Heroic Acts and i'm loving the Blade Dancer one lol.

One thing I would possibly further change/edit (i keep changing the post above as I go a little bit, next edit should be final one), is instead of Psalms of Heroes at level 9, take Blessed Scars instead.

Unlike Kibellah, you're not going to have room to take something like Blood Oath to self heal early game as a Psyker Blade Master. Instead you can combine Blessed Scars with a ring you get after completing the first cultist quest (in a chest on a balcony near the blood fountain in their sanctum), called Blooddrinker.

The ring allows you to regain 1 wound every time you make a melee attack. Not only does that scale well with Blademaster of course, but should also trigger Blessed Scars once per round to keep your MC in good health. That means +(Toughness Bonus) extra healing once per round and +10 stacking Toughness per round until the end of combat as long as you attack.

Psalms may not have a lot of early game use, except for scaling up our Biophysical Distortion Toxin damage (to like 9-18 damage per instead of to 9) by last boss battle). In a way you want to defeat the Space Marine in Act 1 before you get that many Heroic Acts off for Shuttles (As Iconoclast). Still it's up to you.

[Balekai]

Originally posted by Faray:

Unless they changed it though Sword of Faith doesn't work with Paradox Unlocked so building toward int doesn't really help the build.

Maybe 45 STR would be good for the PSI Breastplate if Viel is an issue, to reduce it or get extra PSI Raiting too.

Yep you're right tested doesn't work, but that actually makes Intelligence more important as Pseudo Fellowship for Resolve. You need to as quickly as possible, ramp up Momentum gain by having like a base of 10ish + Word of The Emperor uses.

Remember with INT being Pseudo Fellowship = Resolve, our party will be reaching 175 Momentum very quickly usually within the first Round of combat between all the Momentum gain sources. You want to start high so you don't need to ramp it up that much and you will always have good added damage with Sword of Faith recasts. So I'm not too worried about the Paradox Solved not working with Sword of Faith. The other benefit of Intelligence is that it's still very useful to unlock on this character.

As for Paradox Solved basically the only other candidate is Pascal (for beating the -167 logic skill check). If he's a Plasma GS (like for me) that means a free Dismantling Attack or GS infamous Heroic Act I will not bother remembering its name. :D

If Paradox Solved is on this character instead, it's much better, making room for Sword of Faith use with Momentum. If you're going down the Iconoclast route here, the Zealot rank also helps a lot with it's own version of Paradox Solved but for teammates. So Pascal, Cassia or anyone can get a free Heroic Act anyways.



On the Breastplate: Definitely doable I think. The first problem though with the Breastplate is that it's a breastplate. Dodge is King especially for Blade Dancer with some things even scaling off Dodge chance if memory serves. Psychic Phenomenon aren't a biggy unless they kill you automatically (lol). Stabilizing Factor and Inscribed Soul (which may work with new wound sacrifice talents, haven't truly tested) + Cassia Navigator talents and abilities are more than enough to keep you at low Veil Degradation. Or you can abuse Cone and Line Sword of Faith attacks to keep that from happening, which don't generate it. There's another trick - blade Dance doesn't cause the Veil Degredation form Sword of Faith Single attack (shhh...). :p

I think as a Sanctic Blade Dancer you're better off again scaling up that Resolve, getting Deflection from toxins and just using Heroic Acts amongst the team to scale Psy Rating w/ Psalms of Heroes. Then use your high resolve to scale up that Sword of Faith Direct Damage on cast/recasting it (another reason to have some good base resolve. The base damage will need to be scaled up).

[Gengisgame]

I was thinking of building this into Blade Dancer/Arch Militant/Sanctic/Pyro, the orchestrated flame ability is not a dot but it still applies a damage boost to all melee attacks.

Blade Dancer has synergy with Sanctic healing, use oath to get an extra attack for wounds, heal, boost toughness, which then has further synergy with archmilitant, multiple attacks super scaling weapon skill which can bolster a number of abilities.

Heinrix can go full Biomancer and use these abilities on the Rogue Trader and others.

Just not sure how vital fellowship is.

[Balekai]

Originally posted by Gengisgame:

I was thinking of building this into Blade Dancer/Arch Militant/Sanctic/Pyro, the orchestrated flame ability is not a dot but it still applies a damage boost to all melee attacks.

Blade Dancer has synergy with Sanctic healing, use oath to get an extra attack for wounds, heal, boost toughness, which then has further synergy with archmilitant, multiple attacks super scaling weapon skill which can bolster a number of abilities.

Heinrix can go full Biomancer and use these abilities on the Rogue Trader and others.

Just not sure how vital fellowship is.

Hmm honestly I think for Blade Dancer in general Execution is the best way to go I could be wrong. After the last few days and this morning of testing, it seems best to scale up damage with Blade Dancer (and in the case of topic Sword of Faith damage) with Reckless Abandon etc. It's best at least in relation to upping DPS while also fixing the range/mobility of the class.

Executioner in a way scales damage in a similar means to Abelard Tank, which can end up doing a ot of damage due to damage based off his maximum or Temp Wounds (I think its temp in his case for the most part).

Basically you scale up Max Wounds and self healing (including over time) with Blade Dancer (Blessed Scars giving extra healing and stacking toughness), Executioner (Invigorating Screams, Reprieve, Anatomy Expert etc.) Biomancy (Invigorate, Confer Immunity so you can overheal into temp hp, thus always qualifying for Reckless damage 99% of the time), and Sanctic (Light of the Emperor). Lots of wounds, lots of self healing and overhealing into Temp Wounds.

Then protect those temp wounds with Deflection/Armour from Shield of the Emperor + Gift of Torment ability. With Carnival of Misery + Gift of Agony you can easily get +1 deflection for each enemy in the encounter per turn from toxin. With that Paradox Solved special talent immediately (More on Carnival later and why its important in other ways).

If all done correctly, your Reckless Abandon alone should add +60-70 Temp Wound at least and +60-70% damage for attacks and DoTs (both these numbers scale with maximum wounds of the character).

Then you take talents that increases DoT damage by huge amounts, allowing them to crit too (Note: With the pyro DoT crit talent, the Executioner DoT crit talent actually gives a special extra bonus crit chance). The DoT talents can make them do 100s of damage. Actually thousands in testing when all added together, when buffed with Carnival of Misery Heroic Act(s) from Executioner.

Carnival of Misery adds 100% more damage to DoTs after all other modifiers until the end of combat. A huge deal.
Essentially a 2x modifier of your total damage. Or x3, x4 damage multiplier depending on how many Executioners are in group and use Carnival as well lol. This would also probably be after DoT crits calculation (checked, it is and Carnival actually shows as a flat ending multiplier of x2 for damage).

As important are Upgrades III and Upgrade I. The third upgrade adds permanent bleeding, burning and toxin to enemies ENCOUNTER WIDE INSTANTLY (unless removed i guess :p :P), with a power level = character level/10 (Note: As a side note, this seems to be the best means to gain mass burning for qualifying for the +30% DoT damage from All Encompassing Agony. Easiest and least opportunity costing anyways).

Upgrade 1 makes your Toxin and Burn damage like Bleed direct damage, by making them ignore Deflection/Armour. Bleed gets +30% more damage too.

So now your mostly melee, limited movement Blade Dancer is doing heavy duty DoTs map wide.

Then finally every turn all you need to do is use:

Pain resonance - A 4 cell radius centred on you nuke, is not an attack, and causes enemies to instantly suffer a tick of all their DoTs instantly. In addition on a resist fail Bleeding causes Blind (-30% to dodge and parry), Burning causes Slowed (-3 Movement, honestly burning is the lease needed dot), and Toxin causes Staggered (-20 WS, BS, STR, TGH, AGI).

I would use Where it hurts too, BUT it strips enemies of their DoTs after hit or hits (boo!), You can still take it though as an emergency or boss killing spike ability. I think I might myself. It also synergizes very will with Staff AoE attacks or in our case, Sword of Faith Cone and Line attacks too.

Where it Hurts - Next attack applies 3 instances of all DoTs on target (including ones applies by the attack), or 2 instances for Burst (Blade Dance) or area attacks (Line cone. For Blade Dancer this is usually limited to your melee attacks, but with a Psyker Sanctic Sword of Faith, we have

Getting Carnival of Misery up as soon as possible is probably your biggest priority. The DoTs alone killing trash could easily get you more Momentum to cast Sword of Faith. Again if you have Paradox Solved, you can just use Carnival of Misery right away and leave momentum for Sword of Faith.

Esit: While posting a screen of another Sanctic build I used, I noticed that Emperor's Wrath from Sanctic Staffs do Warp damage. So they should work with the Daemon Tool amulet possibly for Sanctic X/Executioner builds like the one above. The Daemon tool is from the puzzle safe in the Act 1 mirror area under the Rycad Minoris Causeway.