In Elden Ring, by exploiting the strengths of the Blasphemous Blade you are able to craft an extremely powerful Faith build.
While some builds in Elden Ring are centred around a specific weapon, incantation, or sorcery, others focus on working around one of the stats. When it comes to a Faith build, we’re talking about making your character take advantage of incantations and weapons which scale with Faith.
In this guide, we explain in detail how the best Faith build works, the best stats, weapons, armour, and talismans for it as well.
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How to play the Faith build in Elden Ring
For this build, we’ve chosen to keep it simple but effective by focusing on using the Blasphemous Blade. The concept is to spam this weapon’s skill Taker’s Flames, a powerful ability that scales with Faith. This means that the higher your Faith value is, the higher the damage output of the skill is as well.
This build doesn’t require sharp reflexes or a deep understanding of each boss. Be careful though, the Taker’s Flames skill has a casting animation that locks your character in place, forcing you to stand still in front of enemies. Taking damage constantly is the one big downside of this particular play style.
To compensate for that, you want to have good armour and always cast incantations to buff your defence. Among the ones available in the game, you’ll want to always have the Golden Vow active just in case. However, you don’t have to worry about losing HP since the Blasphemous Blade has a passive that heals you.
You shouldn’t use only defensive incantations though. There are great damage buffs such as Flame, Grant me Strength or incantations that cause direct damage, like Law of Causality and Lightning Spear.
Due to the high-damage capacity of this build and the sustain provided by combining the Blasphemous Blade with powerful incantations, this Faith build is extremely strong.
Best stats for the Faith build in Elden Ring
For any build, having the exact stat values is crucial to make them work. Some effects are only triggered based on how high your stats are, while you can only properly use a weapon if you meet its individual stat requirements. But don’t worry if you have spent runes to raise a different stat than the ones you need for this build. Just respec your character and start the build again.
Below, you’ll find the figures you’ll want once you reach Elden Ring endgame content.
- Vigor: 50
- Mind: 22
- Endurance: 30
- Strength: 22
- Dexterity: 16
- Intelligence: 9
- Faith: 60
- Arcane: 9
To reach these numbers, you should consider choosing Confessor as your starting class. It has the best combination of stats to help you to meet the Blasphemous Blade requirements as quickly as possible.
As expected, Faith is the stat you should focus most of your points on. Secondly, you should also keep Vigor in mind, since it affects how much health you have. Endurance is also important for this build, as it allows you to carry heavier pieces of equipment and increases your stamina.
When it comes to the secondary stats, you may want to experiment with Strength and Dexterity depending on the kind of secondary weapon you want to use. Although, while it’s not the main focus for this build, it’s possible to create Faith-Strength or Faith-Dexterity builds too.
Best weapons for the Faith build in Elden Ring
As mentioned earlier, the best weapon for this build is the Blasphemous Blade. It requires 22 Strength, 15 Dexterity, and 21 Faith to use, and its direct damage scales equally based on these three stats. On the other hand, the weapon’s skill Taker’s Flames scales only with Faith but does also causes fire damage.
This weapon is the heart of this build, but it’s not easy to acquire early in the game. To get the Blasphemous Blade, you need to first kill Rykard, Lord of Blasphemy in the Volcano Manor and exchange his Remembrance of the Blasphemous with Finger Reader Enia in the Roundtable Hold for the blade. He is a mid to late-game boss so tackling this battle as a new player is not ideal.
Until you’re ready to face this battle, you’ll need to go for more basic weapons. A good option is to go for the Morning Star, a Strength and Dexterity-based weapon you can acquire for free in the early stage of the game. Another option is to look for the Sacred Blade Ash of War, which is an ability that deals holy damage and scales with Faith. To find this specific Ash of War, visit the Third Church of Marika where you’ll find a Teardrop Scarab which you must kill for it to drop the skill.
After you’re strong enough to explore Caelid, a good upgrade is the Halo Scythe. This weapon requires 13 Strength, 16 Dexterity, and 15 Faith and it allows you to shoot rings of light that damage enemies based on your Faith value. This weapon drops from the Lesser Cleanrot Knights. Target the Knights carrying a scythe and you should be able to get the Halo Scythe quite quickly.
Since you will be using incantations when using this build, you want the best Seal to cast them. Among the options available in the game, the Erdtree Seal is the one you want. You can find it in an abandoned cell in the town outside the Volcano Manor.
Best armour for the Faith build
This build doesn’t require a specific set of armour in order for it to work. You might want to pick your armour based on a theme or just want the highest defence possible. Regardless of what you choose, it’s important that you keep your Equipment Load at medium to keep some mobility.
Saying that, our main suggestion for this build is the Haligtree Knight set since it increases your Faith. It also has a solid physical defence. Another option with a higher Poise stat is the Malformed Dragon set. Even though it doesn’t give you more Faith, it has a better defence against physical damage.
Since you find both sets only in late-game areas, we recommend checking out our guide to the best early game armour. Two early armour sets that can handle the initial areas of the game are the Carian Knight set and the Royal Remains set.
With either of these, you can explore other parts of the Lands Between until you’re strong enough to face the Lesser Cleanrot Knights mentioned in the previous section. During the process of farming them for the Halo Scythe, you can also look for the pieces of the Cleanrot set. Use this set until you can get one of the late-game sets.
Best talismans for the Faith build
This build is not reliant on a specific set of talismans, but there are a couple that you should definitely be using to maximise your damage. The first is the Shard of Alexander, which increases the damage of your skills. You earn this talisman by completing the Iron First Alexander’s quest. Alongside this one, the Fire Scorpion Charm, which you’ll find in Fort Laiedd in Mt. Gelmir, is a solid option to increase your Fire damage.
In case you’re worried about the amount of damage you’re taking while charging the Taker’s Flame skill, you can equip defensive talismans, such as the Dragoncrest Shield Talisman, or the Crimson Amber Medallion. The former reduces physical damage taken and the latter, which has a +1 and +2 version, increases your health. You can find the Dragoncrest Shield Talisman in the Elphael legacy dungeon in the Haligtree, and you can buy the base version of the Crimson Amber Medallion from the Nomadic Merchant in the Weeping Peninsula.
The Great Jar’s Arsenal is not fundamental for this build to work, but it increases the amount of weight you can carry. In other words, it gives you more opportunities to experiment with your armour without having to worry about carrying too much weight.
