There is a common misunderstanding in the Dark Souls community that faith builds are pointless and not very useful. So let me clarify with this guide why faith builds in Dark Souls 3 are viable – especially pure faith builds, further expanded by Soul Farming. This build will focus more on the miracles, and the items and stats will be adjusted accordingly. With that said, here is how you do the faith build Dark Souls 3.
Key Takeaways
- Faith Build relies on using miracles and items to defeat their foes.
- Faith Build takes time to come online hence why it has a problem in the early to mid-game.
- You can go for the Assasin or the Mercenary build if you wish to deal damage and fight at close range.
- The best starting class to choose for this build is either the Cleric Class with the highest faith stat or the Pyromancer class with some balanced stats providing ease in the early game.
- The best tool you can use for casting miracles are either the Chimes or the Talisman, both good in their own right. The most ideal is the Canvas talisman for this build.
- The best rings to complement this weapon are the Morne’s ring, the Sun’s First-Born ring, the Sage Ring, and the Darkmoon Ring.
- The best spells for this build that provide the most damage and efficiency are the Lightning Spear, Great Lightning Spear, and the Sunlight Spear. They do tons of damage and allow you to do so from a safe distance.
- The Utility Spells you can take include the Great Magic Barrier, Deep Protection, and Lightning Stake. They provide defensive prowess and help win out prolonged fights.
Similar: DARK SOULS 3 BEST FAITH WEAPONS
Before we begin, you must know that this build requires a particular playstyle and is not meant for every player. Some people prefer the luck build to gather more embers and deal tons of critical strikes, while some people prefer the quality build.
Without wasting any more time, let’s get started on the faith build Dark Souls 3.
Dark Souls 3 – Faith Build
First things first, let’s discuss the items and stats you will need to become more powerful as a miracle user, and then at the end, we will look at all the different builds. The damage and efficiency of miracles are determined by how many points you put in faith. The optimal level ranges between 50 and 60 if you decide to go for the full faith build.
Choosing a Starting Class
The best starting class for the faith build is the cleric since it has the highest faith stat at the start of the game. With that being said, I still do not recommend going for the cleric class. Instead, choose the pyromancer class since it has 14 faith and 14 intelligence – which we will be needing for our setup; plus, it adds more variety.
Most of the viable miracles are found in the mid to late game – which means that you’ll have a particularly tough time in the beginning. With the pyro class, you can infuse your melee weapons and get through the start to reach the good miracles.
Chimes and Talismans
Now let’s talk about two of the most integral parts of the faith build – chimes and talismans. These are the tools that cast miracles. Both of these tools are found in previous Dark Souls games as well. In Dark Souls 3, both of them are featured which gives you extra variety to spice up the build.
The difference between them is the various weapon arts and in general, chimes do a tad bit more damage. That doesn’t mean that they are stronger than talismans however, in fact, talismans are much more practical and viable.
The weapon art for the chimes is the self-regen buffs that slowly regenerate your health bar as long as the weapon art stays in either of your hands. The weapon art for the talisman is special and is considered the best in Dark Souls 3 without a doubt. If miracles had more variety and spells, they would become the most powerful school of magic. Due to the lack of variety, it does not get used as much.
The weapon art for the talisman gives you immense amounts of poise while casting – which means you can keep casting your spell even if an enemy hits you. This luxury is not found in other classes. It allows you to keep trading and inflicting massive amounts of damage to enemies despite getting hit by them.
Using the canvas talisman is ideal for this build as it provides the player with tons of poise, thus reducing stagger. Not only does it have a high amount of poise, but it also deals a considerable amount of damage.
Rings
Moving on to the rings that you’ll want to equip that complement this build. The Morne’s ring, which can be found on the road of sacrifices, increases your miracle damage by 12%. Although the damage increase is not significant, it is still superb considering you get this early in the game.
If you stack the previous ring with the Sun’s First-Born ring, you get an immense boost in your damage. Another important ring is the Sage ring. It greatly decreases your cast speed and allows you to use spells at a faster rate. The Darkmoon ring is also crucial for this build as miracles use up tons of slots. This ring allows the player to have two extra slots for your spells, thus giving you more diversity.
Now let’s move on towards the bread and butter of any faith build, the spells.
Damaging Spells
We will be looking at the main spells for this build: the lightning spear, great lightning spear, and the sunlight spear. The latter of which is the best spell out of the three. These spells concentrate on long-range combat, especially the sunlight spear. Its damage can obliterate your enemies and since you’re doing all of this while having the luxury of range, you will find yourself hurling lightning spears with little to no retaliation. Read our article on Dark Souls 3 Spears.
The major downside of the sunlight spear is that it uses many focus points which means that you will have to carry tons of Ashen Estus flasks. In PVP fights, the sunlight spear is relatively convenient to dodge as you can telegraph it easily; luckily, all we have to do is trade damage with the enemy and use the spell when attacked.
No matter what your opponent hits you with, you will always come out on top if you trade damage using the sunlight spear.
The final damaging spell we will be talking about today is the lightning storm. You can acquire it after defeating the nameless king and selling his soul in Firelink Shrine. Getting this spell can take tons of effort as the nameless king is an optional endgame boss that is extremely difficult to kill. The area this spell covers is mind-boggling and can be confusing for players to dodge.
The cast speed is slow, but you can use the poise weapon art so you won’t get staggered. On top of that, you can follow it up with the sunlight spear to practically one-shot your enemy. Plus, this spell can hit your opponents multiple times if you time it correctly, thus killing them immediately.
Utility Spells
The faith build has some of the best support spells in Dark Souls 3 by far. In addition, the great magic barrier is highly beneficial for you as it does not let the player take any magic damage for a while.
Alongside this, you can also use spells such as deep protection. It increases your damage and your defense making it harder to defeat you. It also enhances these stats for other white phantoms summoned around you. Finally, tears of denial will make the game much easier as it essentially gives you an extra life in case you die.
The next spell we will be looking at is that lightning stake which can be found in the smoldering lake. The damage and utility of this spell surpass that of the sunlight spear. The only issue is that it works effectively in the short-range. You can use this to your advantage; any time your enemy gets close to you, use this spell to deal incredible area of effect damage and stagger enemies. Since it stuns the enemies for a short period, it can be considered as a sort of utility spell.
Conclusion
I can understand why the faith build does not match most players’ playstyle, but it is certainly worth it to give it a shot. Having around 60 faith and about 30 intelligence will grant you the best amounts of damage. Using the setup discussed above, you will get the most optimal build for the faith stat. After tons of experimentation, this was the best layout I could come up with.
I hope you will try out this build to spice up your gameplay and have fun with new playing games. With that, the guide about faith build Dark Souls 3 comes to an end. Please leave a comment below telling me about your favorite type of builds.
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