Do you need Faith and Intelligence for anything?

[Lewis Nixon]

Faith and intelligence might be useful in real life, but do you need them in dark souls if you are also spending points on strength and dexterity?

It seems like either you should have lots of spell casting skills or none at all. I haven't seen any low level spells that seem all that useful.

[grudzielanek]

It all depends on your build and whether you want to go Pve or Pvp. Personally, I've used a full battle mage build with 60+ int. This time around I've gone full heavy STR build with no int or faith. On the other hand I've seen some pretty cool STR builds that used faith. It's all up to however you want to play and what your goal is.

[Dormeur]

Depends entirely upon what you want to do. They can be incredibly useful, even at low levels, and while one could argue that any spell can be useful if used right, 15 int will get you Hidden Body, Chameleon and Rapport, while 15 Faith will get you access to Toxic Mist and Tears of Denial.

Hell, 12 int/Fth will also give you access to the Storyteller's Staff, allowing the use of an incredibly potent and unique form poison that stacks with Toxic Mist.

[Daelight]

Yeah, you can play like STR/FTH, or DEX/INT, or INT/FTH. A mix from either of these things, besides the typical quality path of STR/DEX, notice, that even if you play like full "spiritual" path, with INT/FTH, you can still wield melee weapons, just with the right infusions.

As a pyromancer that liked to use some faith miracles, but mostly for pve runs, I liked to start as a Knight, get pyromancy flame, top int/fth at 40s, equip a dark longsword and at some point a dark/blessed lothric knight sword. Using Pyromancy and Miracles but also been open to Sorcery while not necessarily sacrificing my melee options were the best times ever.

Now, with my main character, I am focusing only on a "build" sort of about helping players by supporting them, keeping them alive and melting bosses in cooperation mode.

[Lewis Nixon]

Okay, I guess I haven't seen any of the good spells yet. For now I will continue to keep the faith.

[Taco Cat]

Originally posted by Shomo:

Okay, I guess I haven't seen any of the good spells yet. For now I will continue to keep the faith.

If you decide to focus on faith, you can nuke bosses with sunlight spear and 60 faith.

[Ferrarius_Christi]

It's hard to follow the INT path, since it locks you out of strong melee weapons, but with FTH/INT build some infusions performs better

[Lewis Nixon]

Originally posted by Raptor_Fawr:

It's hard to follow the INT path, since it locks you out of strong melee weapons, but with FTH/INT build some infusions performs better

So right now I'm only using intelligence because I have these chrystal infused daggers, and I want to keep the intelligence scaling. It seems really inefficient but I think that any other infusion will make them too weak to use.

[lailaamell]

If you are pyro yes pyromancies scales with int faith

[khamalxdd]

Sunlight oath from sword,15 faith
Soothing heal or wtv name for 1st regen spell,15 or 16 faith
Can be min maxed ontop of str builds or dex to achieve 1200 dmg ar greatswords and ugs
and or a slow recovery for people playing you out for time/aka roll spamming and waiting for opening

[oRy]

lk

[Le Bluette]

I'm planning to use Friede Scythe with my char, minimum requirements +5 the total damage is 422 but if you rise up DEX INT to 30/30 it becomes 567.
DEX INT 60/20 is better if you don't need magics tho, the damage is like 600 and unless you meet a Havel Cosplayer (strong magic and melee defense armour) you gnaw into armour like paper

[psheue]

IRL, faith is not only useless, it´s also harmful.

In DS3, if you´re investing in STR and DEX, a little bit of FTH can give you access to regen or ToD. Also, 18 FTH let´s you use the Dragonslayer Swordspear, which I really like.

[Le Bluette]

Originally posted by psheue:

IRL, faith is not only useless, it´s also harmful.

In DS3, if you´re investing in STR and DEX, a little bit of FTH can give you access to regen or ToD. Also, 18 FTH let´s you use the Dragonslayer Swordspear, which I really like.

At 30 faith you can cast great lightning spear which basically oneshot ultra weapon users in pvp when at close range

[𝓡𝓮𝓽𝓻𝓸𝓒𝓪𝓽]

Originally posted by Shomo:

Faith and intelligence might be useful in real life, but do you need them in dark souls if you are also spending points on strength and dexterity?

It seems like either you should have lots of spell casting skills or none at all. I haven't seen any low-level spells that seem all that useful.

If you're trying to determine whether or not investing in Faith or Intelligence is worthwhile, 60 Intelligence/Faith builds are actually pretty good.
I will admit there aren't that many good Miracles and Sorceries worth using as a whole, but the ones that are worth using work well. Here are my favorites for each category:

Miracles

• Great Heal - in my opinion, the best "bang for your buck" healing Miracle. If you run out of Estus, it can be used to squeeze a handful more full health heals in.
  
• Tears of Denial - used in both PvE and PvP. Can be used to tank one hit that would have killed you, and can occasionally be a game-changer.
  
• Sunlight Spear - the most powerful Miracle in the entire game, and best used up close during a trade while poise casting. Can two-shot most invaders and melts bosses, at the cost of consuming quite a bit of FP.
  
• Lightning Storm - one of the best AOE, if not the best AOE spell in the entire game. Deals decent damage and is extremely hard to dodge, especially if caught off guard and you can't run away fast enough.
  
• Great Magic Barrier - can be used against specific bosses that utilize magic. Can also be used against invaders running Pyromancy, Miracle, and Sorcerer builds.
  
• Dorhys' Gnawing - Good against some bosses that are weak to bleed. Can bleed out invaders fairly quickly and can be rather annoying.
  
• Lightning Arrow - Possibly the best Miracle in the entire game. Very FP efficient while dealing decent damage. Beastly in PvP due to you being able to hold it indefinitely and roll catch people with it, some say this Miracle needs a nerf.

Sorcerery

• Great Heavy Soul Arrow - Possibly the best "bang for your buck" Sorcerery. Hits decently hard, relatively low FP cost, good all around.
  
• Homing Crystal Soulmass - Kind of pointless in PvE, but can be used for devastating combos in PvP. Hits pretty hard.
  
• Crystal Soul Spear - The go-to "heavy" Sorcerery in PvE and PvP. Hits like a nuke but consumes a lot of FP, this is a staple.
  
• Farron Flashsword - Good for PvP. Spams a series of magical light sword attacks.
  
• Pesilent Mist - This can be used on bigger bosses with large health pools like the Demon Princes and Midir. Makes fights like this a cakewalk, the ultimate cheese Sorcerery.
  
• Spook & Hidden Body - Sometimes used in conjunction for stealth kills in PvP. Also useful in PvE for running through areas without fighting anything.
  
• Chameleon - Used for PvP trolling mainly.
  
• Great Soul Dregs - Hits ridiculously hard but travels a bit slowly. Better than Crystal Soul Spear against bosses who are weak to Dark.

[Lewis Nixon]

@SpaceCat

Thanks for the guide! My character is melee focus for now, but I'm thinking about making a new spell casting character tomorrow, and I'll be on the lookout for these spells.