Early miracles

[24k magic]

Hey guys, im starting on my first faith character and im wondering what miracles I should obtain early in the game. Still trying to decide a good early weapon too so if anyone has any tips for me i would greatly appreciate it. Thanks.

[Krampus]

astora straight sword and any heal. When you beat the game, go respec to something that is actually somewhat viable.

[24k magic]

Alright but if I insist on going faith what then? what early miracles are worth getting?

[[Jintoro]]

lightning spear is your only choice until you get stake and a more powerful spear

[24k magic]

What about defensive faith magic? which ones, early or otherwise (I guess) would you recommend?

[[Jintoro]]

The starting cleric heal is nice, sacred oath/deep protection once you get em, but keep in mind there isn't anything innately OP in miracles that would guarantee a spot in your spell bar.
Gnaw/dorhys gnawing for cheesing the bleed vulnerable bosses.
Blessed weapon gives a bit AR and hp regen,
Lightning blade/DMB/dark blade if you're going for a hybrid.
Tears of denial for the cheat death effect.

[Scraps]

Early miracles are definitely... Not super useful, definitely not as notable as the Soul Arrows and Fire Balls. You're going to go hybrid throughout most of your journey, with Lightning Spear and potentially the WoW Corona as your offensive spells. Granted, Lightning Spear casts a helluva lot faster than its predecessors, it trades it's pretty awesome damage to pitiful outputs.

You'll definitely find early miracles to be situational. Caressing Tears will help throughout the fetid poop swamp, while Force is notable in the catacombs. By late game, Sunlight Spear and Lightning Stake will most likely be your only 2 miracles that won't be switching, the rest are, as stated, situational.

[Washing Machine]

Early faith makes the game a bit easier thanks to the chime weapon art healing, and Caressing Tears is nice for the poison swamp. Using Ashen Estus and healing miracles also gives you tons more healing ability than chugging regular estus.

Offense miracles - forget about it. They suck until much later (and even then), best you can do is use Force to knock fools off ledges. The buffs are pretty nice, just don't bother with Sacred Oath or Deep Protection in PVP.

[Elymnir]

Hey there, I've been doing exactly the same for the past few days, making a faith-based character. Unfortunately, like it's been already said, the only viable spell you'll find early is lightning spear (and the cleric's heal, which is really good). There are also very few weapons that scale with faith.

For now I'm just about to start Lothric's castle and doing the dlc before that. The useful spells I've found so far are lightning stake (does more damage than lightning spear, but it is close quarter so not that useful), Dhorys gnawing (which is surprisingly good) and the light chakram from the dlc (not tested yet).

What you have to know is that you won't find all that until Irythill at best, which is frustrating. As for the weapons, high lord Wolnyr's sword is actually very nice and the dragonslayer's axe is great as well. Other than that, just pick what you're comfortable with but your damage output won't be great.
As for defensive spells, tears of denial is always welcomed, but that's pretty much it anyway.

My best advice would be to make a cleric for the spells, level it as a warrior and then respec as a proper cleric when you finally have the spells you want, it'll make things easier. It sucks not being able to play as a cleric for 2/3 of the game but that's how it is :/

[Washing Machine]

Originally posted by Elymnir:

high lord Wolnyr's sword is actually very nice

I like how they buffed the WoTG weapon art on it, and after some checking I found that A) the range it has is WORSE than regular swings with it B) zero hyperarmor. Does good damage I guess, but with the ridiculous cast time and no hyperarmor, it feels completely useless.

Dragonslayer's Axe and Lothric Knight Greatsword are pretty good choices once you get Lightning Blade, since both have lightning damage and can be buffed for even more zap damage. The AR becomes pretty absurd, albeit split damage and lightning is generally the worst element in the game.

[24k magic]

I should probably have mentioned my starting class was Knight, derp. So I should purchase heal, sacred oath for now in early stages? My plan for weaponry is Lothric Knight Greatsword and Mace.

[Washing Machine]

Knight is actually a better choice than Cleric, unless you're like going nothing but att/faith. If you plan to slap stats around on str/dex and such, you end up with about the same SL as you would with Cleric, but got like 8 higher Vitality and whatnot.

Sacred Oath is really useless imo in this game. it's like 10% bonus to AR and Defenses, and it doesn't give that much in PVP. And since you probably got the stats for it, you could just use the WA of Sunlight Straight Sword instead. Plus you need to hit rank1 in sunbros and get to the covenant statue in Loth Castle to get it in the first place.

[LTK]

Get Gnaw and Deep Protection from the Deep Braille Divine Tome and bleed some mofos. Dark Blade for your weapon packs a punch as well, you can get it from the Londor Braille Divine Tome. Non-Dark offensive miracles are sadly underrepresented in the early game.

I dunno how you're going to get Sacred Oath early unless you're killing Dancer straight off, but if you do choose to go that way, you'll get substantially more options from the Lothric Braille Divine Tome in Lothric castle. That's hardly early game though.

[TrueArchery]

Originally posted by LTK:

Get Gnaw and Deep Protection from the Deep Braille Divine Tome and bleed some mofos. Dark Blade for your weapon packs a punch as well, you can get it from the Londor Braille Divine Tome. Non-Dark offensive miracles are sadly underrepresented in the early game.

I dunno how you're going to get Sacred Oath early unless you're killing Dancer straight off, but if you do choose to go that way, you'll get substantially more options from the Lothric Braille Divine Tome in Lothric castle. That's hardly early game though.

Well a good start would be to get Gnaw and bleed the Dancer to death, then you've still most of the game to play and are still in the "early game".

[Elymnir]

Originally posted by Washing Machine:

Originally posted by Elymnir:

high lord Wolnyr's sword is actually very nice

I like how they buffed the WoTG weapon art on it, and after some checking I found that A) the range it has is WORSE than regular swings with it B) zero hyperarmor. Does good damage I guess, but with the ridiculous cast time and no hyperarmor, it feels completely useless.

Dragonslayer's Axe and Lothric Knight Greatsword are pretty good choices once you get Lightning Blade, since both have lightning damage and can be buffed for even more zap damage. The AR becomes pretty absurd, albeit split damage and lightning is generally the worst element in the game.

Yeah, I agree with all that, unfortunately :/
The WA could at least have some hyperarmor, since it takes really too much time to activate. However, thanks for the lightning buff advice, that will be useful. But Lothric knight greatsword will certainly be a no for me. I have a habit of carrying many weapons (I like to have a slow one, a fast one and a bow at any time) and I like to fashion souls through a game, which means I've already put too much points in weight (20 or something). Lothric kinght greatsword will be too heavy.