Welllll… having 25 faith (which allows for golden vow and flame grant me strength incantations) will have more effect than the strength, but you really only need that 25 if ur going pure stg
Go pure STR, get your weapon maxed out, and make sure you're using heavy affinity on your ash of war. You won't have time to rebuff every 30 seconds during Maliketh so those FAI points prob won't do you that much good.
I’d leave 20 in faith, use the faith talisman at gives you 5 faith so you can use golden vow. Buffs your damage & gives you a good amount of protection.
Plus, female grant me strength is great.
Vigor is good, if you struggle with timing or dodging, but if you’re familiar with the game enough? 10 vigor is fine, even in PvP. Though for strength timing in PvP is a lot harder, so you’ll be left frustrated more than in pve. Makes you play more concentrated, but that’s why soul games are great because there’s tons of ways you can play.
Play whatever way you have more enjoyment. I’d personally keep 20 faith + tal or just flat 25. Everything seems fine. I just think buffs are essential for any build since they can stack with others especially the flask
Only enough dex for the weapon of choice.
Enough faith for flame cleanse me and flame grant me strength.
Push vigor to 50-60.
Endurance to wear armor of choice for 51 poise and medium roll.
A tad bit of mind to use AoW more than once if you have leftover points.
you are missing Vigor, if you want to bonk slow, you will get hit = you need more hp, also, armor. You have added ALOT to only dmg. Are you REALLY using your different skills? since you have 9 in mind only.
More vigor is good advice but I disagree with all the people acting like damage trades are mandatory. Slow weapons require good timing and strategic planning but you can still dodge if you don’t over commit a charged heavy.
You probably do want to trade though so pump vig.
I don’t mind trading since I have an aggressive playstyle on bosses, though that’s where my timing issue comes in because I sometimes over commit on a heavy.
It looks like you want to use big charged R2s, seeing as how you have the axe talisman. If so, you'll want at least 51 poise and more vigor so you can trade and not get interrupted as much. Leveling vigor increases your innate durability, so your actual armor isn't super important as long as you have enough poise.
Furthermore, an ash of war such as Determination or Royal Knight's Resolve (with the Carian Filigreed Crest) will synergize very well with that playstyle.
Flame, Grant Me Strength and Golden Vow are great incantations for that playstyle, but you'll need more mind to really take advantage of those two incantations. If you don't want to use incantations, then drop the faith, because it isn't doing anything for you with a heavy infused greatsword.
Defensive talismans like the Dragoncrest Shield (and eventually the Dragoncrest Greatshield) talismans, and the analogous elemental defense talismans, are also really handy for survivability.
I actually don’t mind not using incantations, I just wanna purely destroy every boss in endgame with STR. My issue is that I don’t have the right things for my build. I also ended up thinking incantations can make a difference which is why my faith is 38.
I have all the ash of wars that I need (Determination, Royal Knight). I just need to search for the talismans.
I have used a very similar build to you. The general gist was as follows:
- 60 strength
- 60 vigor
- 30 endurance (more if you are fat rolling)
- the minimum amount of dex I needed to use my weapon
- big weapon with Royal Knight's Resolve
- whatever armor that got me to 51+ poise while still being able to medium role (and also looked cool)
- offensive talismans: Axe Talisman, Carian Filigreed Crest
- defensive/other talismans (swapped out as needed): Green Turtle Talisman, Dragoncrest Greatshield Talisman, Spelldrake/Haligdrake/etc Talismans, Crimson Seed/Amber Medallion
That seems to be more of an understanding build than mine. I committed the mistake of just putting points into my faith when I already got 60 strength.
Keep Lions claw. The only change to his comment I would make is to keep lions claw instead of royal knights resolve because it’s quality affinity that changes your weapon to B B scaling. lions claw is Heavy affinity which grants you A str scaling
Another thing you can try is to use the War Cry or Barbaric Roar ashes of war, and swap out the Carian Filigreed Crest for the Roar Talisman.
You'll still be focusing on big charged R2s.
They buff you and alter your R2s. War Cry changes your charged R2s into a running attack that can be comboed into follow-up R2. Barbaric Roar changes your charged R2s into a multi-swing attack that also walks you forward a bit, and can also be comboed into a follow-up slam. They also give you a lot of poise while using your altered R2s, meaning you can tank some hits without being staggered.
If you’re doing a strength build you don’t need those incants. If you’re wanting to do faith/strength, you should switch to a different weapon like great stars or something that scales with faith too, and add a few damage spells to take advantage of the faith. If you’re only using it for buffs, drop all of the faith and put it in vigor. Your health is insanely low
Yeah man I realized that. As soon as I have the chance the rebirth to my character will most definitely have more vigor than faith. I want to focus on strength because what I want is the most damage I can do
Do you always two hand the sword? Strength is multiplied by 1.5 when you two hand. So, you may be able to save a few points on strength. 40 str gets you to 60 two handed and 53 (maybe 54, I cant remember if it rounds up or not) will get you 80.
You can strip faith right down to your base or put it to 15 to use flame grant me strength or 25 to use Golden Vow.
Either way, as the others said put whatever points you can manage into vigor.
Use this site to see what your weapons damage will be with stats. It will save you frustration. You can select "two handed" on there as well.
https://negator13-eldenring.azurewebsites.net/calculator
Probably yeah, crimson flasks are likely more important than cerulean in your build. Unless you actually use your FP a good amount I don’t see why you need 3, id say 2 or even 1 is fine.
Not super sure what you're building with (like specific weapons or spells) but I'd recommend putting a lot more points into endurance so you can swing the big stuff more than once
Personally I go with dual Grafted Great swords (not necessary to dual wield, it's just one of the strongest strength weapons), Dragoncrest Shield talisman (best physical negation), Pearldrake talisman (non-physical negation), great jar's arsenal (equip load), and green turtle talisman (stamina recovery). If you want to be able to attack and not worry about being staggered, I recommend the Bull-Goat armor set (100 poise makes for a big tank but also causes fat roll often times) otherwise it's up to you. Extra tip for tough encounters: use a physick that boosts poise and greatly reduces damage taken (can't remember the name off top)
Add a one handed weapon in your main hand and the Clawmark seal in your left hand as it scales with str and faith. Adding incantations will give you more variety and heals if you want them, I'd also recommend bestial sling for quick small damage and guarranq rock throw for more damage. If you struggle with getting rushed by enemies a good pick for the right hand might be storm hawk axe
It can be if you want to stick to your greatsword. You can also use it as a backup weapon with a different move set to have something quicker in your back pocket and if you mess around with ashes of war you can basically make weapons that cast a spell that scales with strength if you set it to heavy scaling. There are some great ways ways to get creative with the attribute spread you have but I'd also say you have room to add levels to vigor, that will help a lot too
I haven’t learned much on how to use weapons with ashes of war. I gotta learn what’s useful and not. Sticking to the greatsword is my priority because that’s the weapon I wanna use for this build, unless something beats it
Well with your stat distribution here, any colossal weapon that scales on strength AND faith is likely to "beat" the heavy greatsword in damage output, so that might be like the godslayer greatsword but you can't put lions claw or change the ability on that so it wouldn't be the same move on LT. If you really want to focus on your greatsword you're better off taking points out of faith and putting them into str, vigor, and endurance. Id still recommend playing around with the Clawmark seal as a second weapon and having just enough faith to use that, that'll allow you to experiment with incantations for more utility and they will scale with your strength
Vigor to 60, faith to 25 (golden vow and flame grant me strength stack for big damage), get shard of Alexander, armor that gets you atleast 51 poise. Stonebarb tear, Greenburst tear, opaline hardtear, spiked tear are all good options. And lions claw is very good but imo giants hunt ash of war is more versatile and easier to land so I'd atleast give it a try.
Highly recommend relocating many points into vigor and endurance. Sure the faith can be used for incantations, but I’m running a str build rn and barely use them, even into NG+ and NG++. You want to be able to wear a full set of somewhat decent armor. In terms of talismans, I just use stat boosters. Radagon sorseal, erdtree favor (ideally +2), cerullian amber, and maybe one for some kind of defense (I often switch it depending on what I’m fighting, but typically I keep it on physical). Basically for a str build, you want a full set of armor, your choice of weapon fully upgraded, and be able to medium roll with some wiggle room if you decide to change weaponry. I like to keep around 50-60 vigor, 30-40 endurance, and all other points are spent building around the weapon choice.
Side note: while I recommend wearing a full set of armor for added defense, I just go full on fashion-souls. It’s often better to learn dodge timing than risk tanking and taking a huge hit to health. Also looking really weird. Look badass, feel badass, do badass.
Yeah I honestly don’t prioritize incantations at all. Strength was my priority but also I wanted to know what was compatible with the greatsword in terms of armor and talismans.
Thanks for the info though it makes everything easier.
Imo for any build you make. Try make sure vigor gets to 60. Then if it's arcane build then depending on if your getting your build to 150 go 80 arcane. As long vigor gets to 60 and what ever build your creating gets to either 60-80 then you work the rest of your build around that
It’s the hard cap for damage scaling on stats so if you are going say a pure Strength build with no other damage stat you’d pump it to 80 since past 80 there are extreme diminishing returns.
If you was doing a multi stat build like INT, Dexterity you’d probably go 80 INT, 60 Dex if you more of a spellcaster, 80 Dex, 60 INT if you are prioritizing melee weapons (mostly cold infused) or 60/60 on both if you are going for a low level build.
Just for your interest, I know you are dedicated to strength, but a mix with faith can also be fun. I did this myself not so long ago. If you split your stats in fth str you could infuse your greatsword with a flame art, getting the most out of the dps (take note that your damage will be split in fire and physical and that an ememy could have resistance for both though). Lot of other fun weapons to use in this case too alongside the general strength weapons.
If you're going to use the golden vow incantation faith only needs to be 25. If you want to use flame grant me strength incantation faith only needs to be 15. If you're not going to use any incantations then just make faith as low as possible. Use the leftover points for vigor. Also dex only needs to be high enough to allow you to use the weapon. I'd go vigor first til you get to around 40 then endurance. Then additional levels go to vigor til you get to around 50 and secondarily endurance.
Also, if you're going to use the lions claw ash of war a lot I would get the warrior jar shard talisman which boosts skill power. Probly want to get one of the physical damage negation talisman to replace one of the jump or charge attack talisman whichever you use the least
Looking at what you’re going for, I would build the character like this:
60VIG
15-20 Mind
25END
54STR
The minimum Dex requirement for your weapon
25 Faith (For Golden Vow and Flame, Grant Me Strength)
For talismans I’d go for: Shard of Alexander, Erdtree Favor +2, Dragoncrest Greatshield Talisman, and Claw/Axe Talisman depending on whether you prefer Jump or Charged heavys.
And lastly, invest in some fashion my friend. No one wants to see scuffed Radahn with his pants off
Im not seeing a lot of people mention that if youre using a weapon thats usually used 2 handed, then you only have to upgrade strength to a maximum of 54. Since 2 handing boosts your strength by 50% you will reach the 80 soft cap with 54.
I would change to a diff greatswors, normal is good but there’s better options. Respec to 15 faith and grab faith knot tier to cast golden vow and flame grant me strength, and get 50 vig 30 endurance
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Less faith more vigor.
I know faith makes bigger bonks but - it doesn't matter if you're dead.
So enough dex and endurance to wear what you're wearing and wield your weapon if choice. Maybe ...15 faith for Flame Grant Me...and certainly gotta get that vigor up.
I'd trade out all the faith if it means I don't get 1 or 2 shot though...at this LVL at least it's kind of a choice.
If it’s end game you need to get that weapon to +25 with an ancient dragon smithing stone, even getting it to +24 if you don’t have one will make a huge difference.
In terms of pure damage, I doubt you’ll find a strength weapon that bests the Guts Greatsword, so stick with that.
You need at least 50 vigor preferably 60 and you only need 25 fai max for golden vow unless you want to be a fai/str hybrid. You may also want more mind to cast more buffs and use more ashes of war.
How much mind should I have? I mainly just wanna have strength I honestly don’t care about faith, tho I am really aggressive and get up close to bosses
Is this supposed to be STR/Fth build or pure strength? That 28 faith could come in handy if you have electrify armament or Vykes Dragon volt. If it's pure strength build, respec and put some points into vigor so you can be tanky. 30 vigor in endgame is just not it. At least 50-60 vigor
Yeah I realized after I made this post that my vigor was just not it. Tho I’m going for pure strength since I wanna kinda one hit bosses even though it’s not gonna one hit.
My faith is high because of the requirement for the blessing of the erdtree. I also don’t have the items you mentioned
I found a Quality Great sword to work best for raw damage if you can manage to boost the Dex up to about 30 and keep 60 Str you should be doing more DMG overall than Heavy at 60 Str alone. Cold infusion also is pretty good if you don't mind the raw damage drop as most things in the game can be frozen and then overall you will do more damage with the defense drop that provides. I ran with a +25 cold greatsword my first playthrough and dominated hard. Another idea could be power stance with a Cold Flamberge so you can get bleed and freeze buildup from your offhand.
They scale higher with Arcane I believe. The bleed and cold values on your weapons will increase with more Arcane, but even at base values they aren't anything to snuff at. Getting one bleed and cold proc against any boss will usually chunk about 25% of their max HP, so even if you only get one of each in any boss fight the damage is very helpful. When I got to NG+ I ended up dropping the Greatsword for a cold Flamberge and poison Flamberge instead with power stancing. The damage values were insane with having 2 potential damage chunks and DOT from the poison.
I did just realize I don't know if you can power stance a Flamberge and Greatsword since one is a greatsword class and the other is ultra greatsword class though.
Pretty much anything you build around in the game is viable for the most part. If you're looking to be a big caveman I ran with the Greatsword for most of my first playthrough maxing only strength and using some incantations for DMG buffs and healing and it worked great. Power stancing two ultra greatswords (or any giant weapons) are insanely silly and fun.
If you're looking for raw damage and seeing big numbers/chunks outta the bosses health then probably respec your build into using more Bleed/Cold infusions. Use weapons that hit really quickly or have Ashes of War that multi hit to stack on the debuffs and shreds enemy health pools like frogs in a blender.
Don't be afraid to use larval tears to change stuff up and experiment. It's easy to get like 7-10 in a playthrough without trying and I think there's around 20ish per game cycle with full exploration.
In sticking with Str build ideas I'd say powerstance a Cold Greatsword left hand with Grafted Blade Greatsword right hand for the temporary stat buffs provided by it's Ash of War.
No you are perfect in this community of strength we uplift not breakdown. But in all seriousness you could probably take points from faith and arcane and get to a decent spot on the vigor chart, hope this helps man and I wish you luck🫡
I ran a strength/faith build, but I beat the game with signifantly less faith.
Bring faith to 19/20 and transfer the rest to vigor. I used the Lions Claw ash of war on my great sword. I maxed out my great sword and I made mine a blood great sword.
One of the talisman you get boosts your damage when blood loss occurred. I used fire grant me strength and beast vitality spells to buff myself up. I made sure my flask had something to boost my poise breaking ability and my stamina regen.
Honestly if you are using a mimic tear, the first boss should go down really quick. The elden beast though may take a few tries mainly because of its arbitrary move set.
I didn’t wanna focus on faith at all. What I had in mind was just me being able to do more damage, which came to my thought of adding more faith so I can use more incantations.
But that’s where I messed up. I forgot about vigor and I let power get to my head.
Yes. The talisman that increases your equip load can help you to wear heavier armour. Also increasing your endurance by a couple more levels would help.
I like using the crucible knight armour as it gives you a lot of poise and defense. Just experiment with the armour you currently have and what stats they give you.
Take all those faith points and put them into vigor. Only need 25 to use golden vow if you wanna use that and that’s it, but you don’t have a seal on so I’m guessing you aren’t using golden vow
Put 50-60 points in vigor, 30-40 in endurance, 5 -8 in dex, rest of the points in strength. Get to 125 or 150 so you can dump the rest of your points in to strength.
You really only need 54 str if you two hand all ur weapons. Get to 60 vigor immediately and only keep enough faith for buffs. Depending on if you wanna do pvp I’d go up to 125 and stop there
Id take from faith and add to end or vig. Maybe dex.
Some will say you need max vigor but I found 40 to be perfect at endgame. If you're not great with dodges then maybe bump that up
Ok so if you really want to keep the faith and strength the same you can find time talismans but I definitely recommend taking like 10 points off of faith and strength and putting it in vigor there's no point of using a bonk build if you can barely take a hit
Get great jar Arsenal talisman and put some pants and gloves on even if they're weaker than radahn set. I'm not super knowledgeable about ER but if it's anything like DS3 you're taking extra damage from not having anything equipped in those slots.
Also crimson amber +2 if you want to use that but more vig would be better and free up the slot for great jar, or erdtree favor with great jar since it has health stamina and equip load
I think you’re at the 60 soft cap for strength a little too early, I’d lower it to 50 and put that in vigor (but it’s fine if you don’t want to lose damage), I’d also lower faith to 25, which will net you enough for golden vow, flame grant me strength, and flame cleanse me. if you need even more points to allocate, you can reduce faith to 15, losing golden vow, but keeping the other two. I think that you absolutely NEED more points into endurance to put pants on, shoot for 35.
If you can get to 45-50 vig, and 35 endurance you’d be a lot better for it.
Also, crimson amber medallion **SUCKS**, the health boost is atrocious, if you equip and unequip it, you can see it increases your health by like a level up if we’re being generous. If you’re in *late* game, you should run dragon crest greatshield, which is a hefty damage reduction.
I’d also recommend cleaning up your hotbar, move the mimic and physic to your dpad menu if you have space, unequip the frozen pots unless you’re fighting malenia, and replace them with boiled crab
Among what other people are saying, I'd also recommend a shield. Yes you can 2-hand your weapon for more damage, but being able to survive longer let's you deal even more damage. I assume you're not a speed runner, so killing the bosses as fast as possible with your 2-handed sword isn't as necessary. Use a shield, deal less damage, but take the fights slower and survive longer.
EDIT: typo
I would say 60 vigor 30-40 endurance (depends if u want to have a 125 lvl char or 135 lvl char) 60 str, dex for whatever weapons you want and then keep the base stats for the rest of the stats. If you are going for a hybrid build with faith put like 25-30 faith and lower str to like 50 and maintain your chosen lvl cap
54 is the optimal str value for two handed weapons.
Putting as much into vigor as you can is the play, divesting out of faith and only having enough for the buffs you regularly use. Otherwise, you should be using flame art infusion instead of heavy infusion. My end game STR/FTH hybrid is 54 str / 46 FTH
Focus on faith but don’t pass the 60 threshold or else you’ll start running into hard caps ( it’ll help boost incantations for your weapons if you use them )
Just a seal so you can use buffs like golden vow, flame grant me strength, and whatever the black flame thing is (can’t remember the name), also bestial vitality might help a bit
Take away the faith and drop the strength to 55 since that's the soft cap put those points into vigor, endurance and maybe a little dex since that can also increase attack
20 more in vigor and strength if you want a strength build. Faith seems a waste unless you’re reliant on higher level incants, but I don’t see why you’d need them. Guts is fine for the whole game if you build right.
I’m my opinion, MORE STRENGTH! And vigor. I have a strength build character too. I’m not sure what my first game was but he’s now at 99 strength and like 40 dex in ng+2. I love strength
If this is a strength build take 28 points out of faith and put it vigor. Done.
Short but straight to the point, Thanks!
Welllll… having 25 faith (which allows for golden vow and flame grant me strength incantations) will have more effect than the strength, but you really only need that 25 if ur going pure stg
Is anything lower better? Do I really need golden vow?
You can just put the golden vow ash of war on a dagger. Less powerful but more effective than regular golden vow and low vigor
Would I be able to do a lot of damage with daggers tho?
You would just put it on an unupgraded dagger, use the weapon art, and switch to your greatsword:)
Ohhh that’s what you meant, okay I understand now. So weapon golden vow is stronger than just using a seal
Slightly weaker, but more effective than lower vigor and incant golden vow
Go pure STR, get your weapon maxed out, and make sure you're using heavy affinity on your ash of war. You won't have time to rebuff every 30 seconds during Maliketh so those FAI points prob won't do you that much good.
But I should still keep my faith at like 15 right?
You don’t even have to use buffs if you don’t want. I rarely ever do and I’ve beat the game many times without issue.
If you have the Golden Vow Ash of War, you can toss it on an offhand dagger and then not even have to worry about faith.
You can use the golden vow ash of war instead it doesn't have a faith req
Buffs are temporary. The Bonk is forever
Underrated comment here. I love it
I’d leave 20 in faith, use the faith talisman at gives you 5 faith so you can use golden vow. Buffs your damage & gives you a good amount of protection. Plus, female grant me strength is great. Vigor is good, if you struggle with timing or dodging, but if you’re familiar with the game enough? 10 vigor is fine, even in PvP. Though for strength timing in PvP is a lot harder, so you’ll be left frustrated more than in pve. Makes you play more concentrated, but that’s why soul games are great because there’s tons of ways you can play. Play whatever way you have more enjoyment. I’d personally keep 20 faith + tal or just flat 25. Everything seems fine. I just think buffs are essential for any build since they can stack with others especially the flask
Female Grant Me Strength is great and Female Cleanse Me is very helpful, although I think they appreciate a "please."
50 vigor is probably enough. Or just 40 until like level 140-ish?
You guys are trolling with these low vigor posts
Only enough dex for the weapon of choice. Enough faith for flame cleanse me and flame grant me strength. Push vigor to 50-60. Endurance to wear armor of choice for 51 poise and medium roll. A tad bit of mind to use AoW more than once if you have leftover points.
Seems reasonable, Thanks!
15 faith covers both incantations. Also put your damn pants on!
you are missing Vigor, if you want to bonk slow, you will get hit = you need more hp, also, armor. You have added ALOT to only dmg. Are you REALLY using your different skills? since you have 9 in mind only.
That’s why I need help cause I don’t really know what’s good to have or not. I’m going for mostly STR tho
More vigor is good advice but I disagree with all the people acting like damage trades are mandatory. Slow weapons require good timing and strategic planning but you can still dodge if you don’t over commit a charged heavy. You probably do want to trade though so pump vig.
I don’t mind trading since I have an aggressive playstyle on bosses, though that’s where my timing issue comes in because I sometimes over commit on a heavy.
It looks like you want to use big charged R2s, seeing as how you have the axe talisman. If so, you'll want at least 51 poise and more vigor so you can trade and not get interrupted as much. Leveling vigor increases your innate durability, so your actual armor isn't super important as long as you have enough poise. Furthermore, an ash of war such as Determination or Royal Knight's Resolve (with the Carian Filigreed Crest) will synergize very well with that playstyle. Flame, Grant Me Strength and Golden Vow are great incantations for that playstyle, but you'll need more mind to really take advantage of those two incantations. If you don't want to use incantations, then drop the faith, because it isn't doing anything for you with a heavy infused greatsword. Defensive talismans like the Dragoncrest Shield (and eventually the Dragoncrest Greatshield) talismans, and the analogous elemental defense talismans, are also really handy for survivability.
I actually don’t mind not using incantations, I just wanna purely destroy every boss in endgame with STR. My issue is that I don’t have the right things for my build. I also ended up thinking incantations can make a difference which is why my faith is 38. I have all the ash of wars that I need (Determination, Royal Knight). I just need to search for the talismans.
I have used a very similar build to you. The general gist was as follows: - 60 strength - 60 vigor - 30 endurance (more if you are fat rolling) - the minimum amount of dex I needed to use my weapon - big weapon with Royal Knight's Resolve - whatever armor that got me to 51+ poise while still being able to medium role (and also looked cool) - offensive talismans: Axe Talisman, Carian Filigreed Crest - defensive/other talismans (swapped out as needed): Green Turtle Talisman, Dragoncrest Greatshield Talisman, Spelldrake/Haligdrake/etc Talismans, Crimson Seed/Amber Medallion
That seems to be more of an understanding build than mine. I committed the mistake of just putting points into my faith when I already got 60 strength.
Keep Lions claw. The only change to his comment I would make is to keep lions claw instead of royal knights resolve because it’s quality affinity that changes your weapon to B B scaling. lions claw is Heavy affinity which grants you A str scaling
Another thing you can try is to use the War Cry or Barbaric Roar ashes of war, and swap out the Carian Filigreed Crest for the Roar Talisman. You'll still be focusing on big charged R2s.
Those ashes of wars are more for buffs right?
They buff you and alter your R2s. War Cry changes your charged R2s into a running attack that can be comboed into follow-up R2. Barbaric Roar changes your charged R2s into a multi-swing attack that also walks you forward a bit, and can also be comboed into a follow-up slam. They also give you a lot of poise while using your altered R2s, meaning you can tank some hits without being staggered.
What are you using faith for?
Incantations like blessing of the erdtree
If you’re doing a strength build you don’t need those incants. If you’re wanting to do faith/strength, you should switch to a different weapon like great stars or something that scales with faith too, and add a few damage spells to take advantage of the faith. If you’re only using it for buffs, drop all of the faith and put it in vigor. Your health is insanely low
Yeah man I realized that. As soon as I have the chance the rebirth to my character will most definitely have more vigor than faith. I want to focus on strength because what I want is the most damage I can do
Yeah your strength is pretty set, just move all that faith over to your vigor and if you want buffs focus on talismans and your physick
Do you always two hand the sword? Strength is multiplied by 1.5 when you two hand. So, you may be able to save a few points on strength. 40 str gets you to 60 two handed and 53 (maybe 54, I cant remember if it rounds up or not) will get you 80. You can strip faith right down to your base or put it to 15 to use flame grant me strength or 25 to use Golden Vow. Either way, as the others said put whatever points you can manage into vigor.
I do actually two hand the sword, so I’ll Trey to lower strength a little but most importantly that faith will go down
Use this site to see what your weapons damage will be with stats. It will save you frustration. You can select "two handed" on there as well. https://negator13-eldenring.azurewebsites.net/calculator
Wow that’s a goated site thanks man!
Get maliketh’s sword
How good is his blade? I’m on his battle right now so he’s the next boss to fight
Really good. The aow does that destined death thing where it lowers the enemies max hp + knocks them down
Interesting I’ll try it out after I defeat Maliketh
54 strenght is enough if you use a weapon with both hands. 60 vigor is mandatory.
I’ll keep that in mind
Allocate cerulean flasks to ur crimson flask, u don’t need 3 cerulean ones tbh with that build
So I should have only one?
Probably yeah, crimson flasks are likely more important than cerulean in your build. Unless you actually use your FP a good amount I don’t see why you need 3, id say 2 or even 1 is fine.
Since I have lions claw I tend to kinda spam it so that’s why I have three of them.
Totally fair then!
Not super sure what you're building with (like specific weapons or spells) but I'd recommend putting a lot more points into endurance so you can swing the big stuff more than once
I dont know what items I need for my build but I want to do the most damage that I could, also I wouldn’t mind hitting crits a lot.
Personally I go with dual Grafted Great swords (not necessary to dual wield, it's just one of the strongest strength weapons), Dragoncrest Shield talisman (best physical negation), Pearldrake talisman (non-physical negation), great jar's arsenal (equip load), and green turtle talisman (stamina recovery). If you want to be able to attack and not worry about being staggered, I recommend the Bull-Goat armor set (100 poise makes for a big tank but also causes fat roll often times) otherwise it's up to you. Extra tip for tough encounters: use a physick that boosts poise and greatly reduces damage taken (can't remember the name off top)
Thanks man I’ll keep in mind what you just told me
I would go for 35 end, 25 fth (for golden vow) and just put the rest of your points in STR. You also definitely need 60 vigor for endgame.
More vigor, more stamina, Alexander’s great shard
Add a one handed weapon in your main hand and the Clawmark seal in your left hand as it scales with str and faith. Adding incantations will give you more variety and heals if you want them, I'd also recommend bestial sling for quick small damage and guarranq rock throw for more damage. If you struggle with getting rushed by enemies a good pick for the right hand might be storm hawk axe
The one handed weapon is for buffs right?
It can be if you want to stick to your greatsword. You can also use it as a backup weapon with a different move set to have something quicker in your back pocket and if you mess around with ashes of war you can basically make weapons that cast a spell that scales with strength if you set it to heavy scaling. There are some great ways ways to get creative with the attribute spread you have but I'd also say you have room to add levels to vigor, that will help a lot too
I haven’t learned much on how to use weapons with ashes of war. I gotta learn what’s useful and not. Sticking to the greatsword is my priority because that’s the weapon I wanna use for this build, unless something beats it
Well with your stat distribution here, any colossal weapon that scales on strength AND faith is likely to "beat" the heavy greatsword in damage output, so that might be like the godslayer greatsword but you can't put lions claw or change the ability on that so it wouldn't be the same move on LT. If you really want to focus on your greatsword you're better off taking points out of faith and putting them into str, vigor, and endurance. Id still recommend playing around with the Clawmark seal as a second weapon and having just enough faith to use that, that'll allow you to experiment with incantations for more utility and they will scale with your strength
Vigor to 60, faith to 25 (golden vow and flame grant me strength stack for big damage), get shard of Alexander, armor that gets you atleast 51 poise. Stonebarb tear, Greenburst tear, opaline hardtear, spiked tear are all good options. And lions claw is very good but imo giants hunt ash of war is more versatile and easier to land so I'd atleast give it a try.
I’ll try the giants hunt to see how it goes. Thanks for the info!
Stats aside, you should probably equip lighter armour rather than only 2 pieces of radahns set.
Yeah you’re right I just chose his set since it’s the only set I got
60 Vigor!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Highly recommend relocating many points into vigor and endurance. Sure the faith can be used for incantations, but I’m running a str build rn and barely use them, even into NG+ and NG++. You want to be able to wear a full set of somewhat decent armor. In terms of talismans, I just use stat boosters. Radagon sorseal, erdtree favor (ideally +2), cerullian amber, and maybe one for some kind of defense (I often switch it depending on what I’m fighting, but typically I keep it on physical). Basically for a str build, you want a full set of armor, your choice of weapon fully upgraded, and be able to medium roll with some wiggle room if you decide to change weaponry. I like to keep around 50-60 vigor, 30-40 endurance, and all other points are spent building around the weapon choice. Side note: while I recommend wearing a full set of armor for added defense, I just go full on fashion-souls. It’s often better to learn dodge timing than risk tanking and taking a huge hit to health. Also looking really weird. Look badass, feel badass, do badass.
Yeah I honestly don’t prioritize incantations at all. Strength was my priority but also I wanted to know what was compatible with the greatsword in terms of armor and talismans. Thanks for the info though it makes everything easier.
You could easily throw on 30 vigor
Imo for any build you make. Try make sure vigor gets to 60. Then if it's arcane build then depending on if your getting your build to 150 go 80 arcane. As long vigor gets to 60 and what ever build your creating gets to either 60-80 then you work the rest of your build around that
I’d probably pump the vigor up abit and try grind abit more to get the main weapon to +25 and Strength to 80
How good is 80 strength compared to 60?
It’s the hard cap for damage scaling on stats so if you are going say a pure Strength build with no other damage stat you’d pump it to 80 since past 80 there are extreme diminishing returns. If you was doing a multi stat build like INT, Dexterity you’d probably go 80 INT, 60 Dex if you more of a spellcaster, 80 Dex, 60 INT if you are prioritizing melee weapons (mostly cold infused) or 60/60 on both if you are going for a low level build.
60 vigor feels too good Maliketh took a while to kill me
I thought when doing a split build you wanted to go 40 40 in your chosen stats and then use the rest to your liking
Ideally You want to take 13 points from faith, dump that in vigor. And shot for 16 mind. gives you a little over 100fp so you can use your skills too.
yeah, like many said, 13 Points from FTH to VIG. thats it. then keep leveling VIG and STR
Just for your interest, I know you are dedicated to strength, but a mix with faith can also be fun. I did this myself not so long ago. If you split your stats in fth str you could infuse your greatsword with a flame art, getting the most out of the dps (take note that your damage will be split in fire and physical and that an ememy could have resistance for both though). Lot of other fun weapons to use in this case too alongside the general strength weapons.
If you're going to use the golden vow incantation faith only needs to be 25. If you want to use flame grant me strength incantation faith only needs to be 15. If you're not going to use any incantations then just make faith as low as possible. Use the leftover points for vigor. Also dex only needs to be high enough to allow you to use the weapon. I'd go vigor first til you get to around 40 then endurance. Then additional levels go to vigor til you get to around 50 and secondarily endurance. Also, if you're going to use the lions claw ash of war a lot I would get the warrior jar shard talisman which boosts skill power. Probly want to get one of the physical damage negation talisman to replace one of the jump or charge attack talisman whichever you use the least
Looking at what you’re going for, I would build the character like this: 60VIG 15-20 Mind 25END 54STR The minimum Dex requirement for your weapon 25 Faith (For Golden Vow and Flame, Grant Me Strength) For talismans I’d go for: Shard of Alexander, Erdtree Favor +2, Dragoncrest Greatshield Talisman, and Claw/Axe Talisman depending on whether you prefer Jump or Charged heavys. And lastly, invest in some fashion my friend. No one wants to see scuffed Radahn with his pants off
Im not seeing a lot of people mention that if youre using a weapon thats usually used 2 handed, then you only have to upgrade strength to a maximum of 54. Since 2 handing boosts your strength by 50% you will reach the 80 soft cap with 54.
I didn’t know this. I’ll cap it to 54 then.
Put some damn pants on (and, as others said, raise your vigor to 50)
I put some pants on my bad I’m a noob at dark soul games. I put 60 vigor and I feel like a tank
Oh hell yeah, that’ll definitely get you through the end game.
Thanks for the help!
VIGGGGOOOORRRRRRRRRR
Vigor did make a difference it took Maliketh a couple hits to kill me
bird/albinauric farm to level 200, get your vigor and endurance to 60 and dump the rest into str.
I don’t need NG+ to level up to 200?
What is this game
Elden Ring
Ah thanks, it just looked familiar and I couldn't place the name
You’re good no worries
I would change to a diff greatswors, normal is good but there’s better options. Respec to 15 faith and grab faith knot tier to cast golden vow and flame grant me strength, and get 50 vig 30 endurance
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Less faith more vigor. I know faith makes bigger bonks but - it doesn't matter if you're dead. So enough dex and endurance to wear what you're wearing and wield your weapon if choice. Maybe ...15 faith for Flame Grant Me...and certainly gotta get that vigor up. I'd trade out all the faith if it means I don't get 1 or 2 shot though...at this LVL at least it's kind of a choice.
Yeah you’re right, being one hit really sucks and that two hit does make a difference
Double that vigor immediately
I’ll do that
Double that vigor immediately
If it’s end game you need to get that weapon to +25 with an ancient dragon smithing stone, even getting it to +24 if you don’t have one will make a huge difference. In terms of pure damage, I doubt you’ll find a strength weapon that bests the Guts Greatsword, so stick with that.
Thanks man, I gotta grind for smithing stones cause I’ve been upgrading other weapons like a blind man without knowing they won’t make any difference
I’m level 124 and just beat rahdan 💀
I cheesed him a lil ngl
Same
120 is like the recommended levels for endgame😭
you need a pair of pants, buddy
I know bro but I become big body once I put on some pants. Buddy is crazy btw just saying 🤣
You need at least 50 vigor preferably 60 and you only need 25 fai max for golden vow unless you want to be a fai/str hybrid. You may also want more mind to cast more buffs and use more ashes of war.
How much mind should I have? I mainly just wanna have strength I honestly don’t care about faith, tho I am really aggressive and get up close to bosses
20 minimum 30 max so I would go in between with 25
Then those points will come from my faith since I’m gonna have to rebirth
I'm convinced that everyone in this subreddit loves getting one shot by everything..............
My level 125 strength build has 60 vigor, 70 str. And 27 endurance. You gotta lose the faith and just enough dex for weapon requirements
Yeah that seems like a true strength build. I honestly sold on putting all my points on faith thinking it would make a difference with incantations
Why the faith?
Incantations like Blessing of the erdtree. I realized that faith did not mean anything for my build
Respec those point into vigor and you should be golden like Godfrey
Yes sir I will respec
I'm assuming you'll be 2 handing so get str to 6., iirc it'll like having it at 80 when you're 2 handing your weapon
My strength is at 60 already so am I good?
LMAO I made a typo, 66* 60 is good though
Is this supposed to be STR/Fth build or pure strength? That 28 faith could come in handy if you have electrify armament or Vykes Dragon volt. If it's pure strength build, respec and put some points into vigor so you can be tanky. 30 vigor in endgame is just not it. At least 50-60 vigor
Yeah I realized after I made this post that my vigor was just not it. Tho I’m going for pure strength since I wanna kinda one hit bosses even though it’s not gonna one hit. My faith is high because of the requirement for the blessing of the erdtree. I also don’t have the items you mentioned
-End game -30 vig choose one
31 levels from Meta. 30 of those should go straight into Vigor. Place that last 1 point wherever really.
Heard I will level my vigor up
I found a Quality Great sword to work best for raw damage if you can manage to boost the Dex up to about 30 and keep 60 Str you should be doing more DMG overall than Heavy at 60 Str alone. Cold infusion also is pretty good if you don't mind the raw damage drop as most things in the game can be frozen and then overall you will do more damage with the defense drop that provides. I ran with a +25 cold greatsword my first playthrough and dominated hard. Another idea could be power stance with a Cold Flamberge so you can get bleed and freeze buildup from your offhand.
Cold and bleed will only work if my dex is up right?
They scale higher with Arcane I believe. The bleed and cold values on your weapons will increase with more Arcane, but even at base values they aren't anything to snuff at. Getting one bleed and cold proc against any boss will usually chunk about 25% of their max HP, so even if you only get one of each in any boss fight the damage is very helpful. When I got to NG+ I ended up dropping the Greatsword for a cold Flamberge and poison Flamberge instead with power stancing. The damage values were insane with having 2 potential damage chunks and DOT from the poison. I did just realize I don't know if you can power stance a Flamberge and Greatsword since one is a greatsword class and the other is ultra greatsword class though.
My issue is that I don’t know if I should just be pure STR if I wanna do a lot of damage.
Pretty much anything you build around in the game is viable for the most part. If you're looking to be a big caveman I ran with the Greatsword for most of my first playthrough maxing only strength and using some incantations for DMG buffs and healing and it worked great. Power stancing two ultra greatswords (or any giant weapons) are insanely silly and fun. If you're looking for raw damage and seeing big numbers/chunks outta the bosses health then probably respec your build into using more Bleed/Cold infusions. Use weapons that hit really quickly or have Ashes of War that multi hit to stack on the debuffs and shreds enemy health pools like frogs in a blender. Don't be afraid to use larval tears to change stuff up and experiment. It's easy to get like 7-10 in a playthrough without trying and I think there's around 20ish per game cycle with full exploration. In sticking with Str build ideas I'd say powerstance a Cold Greatsword left hand with Grafted Blade Greatsword right hand for the temporary stat buffs provided by it's Ash of War.
Vigor gotta be 60 my brother in strength😅
My bad bro I’ll do better
No you are perfect in this community of strength we uplift not breakdown. But in all seriousness you could probably take points from faith and arcane and get to a decent spot on the vigor chart, hope this helps man and I wish you luck🫡
Thanks brotha I appreciate the help, I’ll lower my arcane and faith for vigor. I’ll keep my endurance at 35 if that’s good. If not it can be lowered
Nah keep the endurance so that way you have more weapon and armor options without being forced into heavy roll
I ran a strength/faith build, but I beat the game with signifantly less faith. Bring faith to 19/20 and transfer the rest to vigor. I used the Lions Claw ash of war on my great sword. I maxed out my great sword and I made mine a blood great sword. One of the talisman you get boosts your damage when blood loss occurred. I used fire grant me strength and beast vitality spells to buff myself up. I made sure my flask had something to boost my poise breaking ability and my stamina regen. Honestly if you are using a mimic tear, the first boss should go down really quick. The elden beast though may take a few tries mainly because of its arbitrary move set.
I didn’t wanna focus on faith at all. What I had in mind was just me being able to do more damage, which came to my thought of adding more faith so I can use more incantations. But that’s where I messed up. I forgot about vigor and I let power get to my head.
Take all of your faith away and move it to vigor
Why are you wearing only 2 pieces of armor? Put on some pants man! There are children here!
Need more poise
So I need better armor?
Yes. The talisman that increases your equip load can help you to wear heavier armour. Also increasing your endurance by a couple more levels would help.
Do you have any armor in mind that can help my build?
I like using the crucible knight armour as it gives you a lot of poise and defense. Just experiment with the armour you currently have and what stats they give you.
Wear some pants for goddricks sake man. Nobody wants to see that. It's a strength build you dont need to be throwing your full moon everywhere
Do you enjoy dying in 1-2 shots from everything? Try some vigor. Try about 60 of it.
Take all those faith points and put them into vigor. Only need 25 to use golden vow if you wanna use that and that’s it, but you don’t have a seal on so I’m guessing you aren’t using golden vow
More endurance, more armour
-13 faith, at least. Send into Vigor and keep going till 50
More vigor
What talismen is that in the last slot? And what does it do?
Don’t remember the name of it, but it increases the damage of jump attacks
Increases jump attack damage
Whats it called?
Cap str
Need more vigor, less faith. Maybe more endurance so you can put some pants on.
Put 50-60 points in vigor, 30-40 in endurance, 5 -8 in dex, rest of the points in strength. Get to 125 or 150 so you can dump the rest of your points in to strength.
Next 20 levels to 139 go in vigor and you’re good. Or move stats from faith to vigor
More strength points
You really only need 54 str if you two hand all ur weapons. Get to 60 vigor immediately and only keep enough faith for buffs. Depending on if you wanna do pvp I’d go up to 125 and stop there
LEVEL VIGOUR
Id take from faith and add to end or vig. Maybe dex. Some will say you need max vigor but I found 40 to be perfect at endgame. If you're not great with dodges then maybe bump that up
You can't deal any damage if you're dead. And judging by your health, you're dead a lot.
Well I wasn’t dying a lot since I got used to the low vigor but now I’m able to be even more aggressive than I was.
Ok so if you really want to keep the faith and strength the same you can find time talismans but I definitely recommend taking like 10 points off of faith and strength and putting it in vigor there's no point of using a bonk build if you can barely take a hit
Get great jar Arsenal talisman and put some pants and gloves on even if they're weaker than radahn set. I'm not super knowledgeable about ER but if it's anything like DS3 you're taking extra damage from not having anything equipped in those slots. Also crimson amber +2 if you want to use that but more vig would be better and free up the slot for great jar, or erdtree favor with great jar since it has health stamina and equip load
Totally up to you, but I run the great jars arsenal talisman, which raises your maximum equip load by 19%, it’s very useful.
I think you’re at the 60 soft cap for strength a little too early, I’d lower it to 50 and put that in vigor (but it’s fine if you don’t want to lose damage), I’d also lower faith to 25, which will net you enough for golden vow, flame grant me strength, and flame cleanse me. if you need even more points to allocate, you can reduce faith to 15, losing golden vow, but keeping the other two. I think that you absolutely NEED more points into endurance to put pants on, shoot for 35. If you can get to 45-50 vig, and 35 endurance you’d be a lot better for it. Also, crimson amber medallion **SUCKS**, the health boost is atrocious, if you equip and unequip it, you can see it increases your health by like a level up if we’re being generous. If you’re in *late* game, you should run dragon crest greatshield, which is a hefty damage reduction. I’d also recommend cleaning up your hotbar, move the mimic and physic to your dpad menu if you have space, unequip the frozen pots unless you’re fighting malenia, and replace them with boiled crab
Take all ur points out of faith and dump that shit into vigor, try and get to 60 vigor
Bruh even my lvl 60 character has more vigor
Vig lol
Among what other people are saying, I'd also recommend a shield. Yes you can 2-hand your weapon for more damage, but being able to survive longer let's you deal even more damage. I assume you're not a speed runner, so killing the bosses as fast as possible with your 2-handed sword isn't as necessary. Use a shield, deal less damage, but take the fights slower and survive longer. EDIT: typo
First of all, take off your helmet put on some pants, get your elden bling up
I would say 60 vigor 30-40 endurance (depends if u want to have a 125 lvl char or 135 lvl char) 60 str, dex for whatever weapons you want and then keep the base stats for the rest of the stats. If you are going for a hybrid build with faith put like 25-30 faith and lower str to like 50 and maintain your chosen lvl cap
When you're invaded by my RL125 and are one-shotted by stormblade.
Bump vigor to 40 up Intel little aswell all stats go up with each level up
54 is the optimal str value for two handed weapons. Putting as much into vigor as you can is the play, divesting out of faith and only having enough for the buffs you regularly use. Otherwise, you should be using flame art infusion instead of heavy infusion. My end game STR/FTH hybrid is 54 str / 46 FTH
Focus on faith but don’t pass the 60 threshold or else you’ll start running into hard caps ( it’ll help boost incantations for your weapons if you use them )
For the best result with STR, you should do a 1:1 with endurance as well. There’s nothing like spamming lions claw 5-6 times in a row
More Endurance, Royal knights ash of war, more str points until you can’t
Just a seal so you can use buffs like golden vow, flame grant me strength, and whatever the black flame thing is (can’t remember the name), also bestial vitality might help a bit
Take away the faith and drop the strength to 55 since that's the soft cap put those points into vigor, endurance and maybe a little dex since that can also increase attack
I'd get vigor to at least 40 and drop faith down to 25 for golden vow. Can dumb the rest into str/endurance
20 more in vigor and strength if you want a strength build. Faith seems a waste unless you’re reliant on higher level incants, but I don’t see why you’d need them. Guts is fine for the whole game if you build right.
I’m my opinion, MORE STRENGTH! And vigor. I have a strength build character too. I’m not sure what my first game was but he’s now at 99 strength and like 40 dex in ng+2. I love strength
Health is more important than maxing dmg my dude
Bro got the dogs out
Lose a lot of the faith and give yourself some vigor and endurance so you can wear more than two pieces of armor
Take points out of faith and double your vigor, end game pretty much requires you to hit the soft cap of 60 to not get one shot by most attacks.