Best Faith Builds In Elden Ring

Key Takeaways

• Invest heavily in Intelligence for Sorceries & Faith for Incantations to excel in spellcasting in Elden Ring.
• Experiment with different Faith builds like Flame or Lightning to maximize damage against specific enemies.
• For a True Full Caster build, aim for high stats in Intelligence and Faith to access a wide range of spells.

Elden Ring has three stats that put a major focus on spell casting in the game: Intelligence, Faith, and Arcane. While Arcane is the most niche of the three, players will need to invest heavily in Intelligence for Sorceries, and heavily in Faith for Incantations.

Not all Faith builds play the same way. Some will buff players up before they go into battle, some will provide a range of different spells to engage enemies with, and some will make full use of a weapon skill via the damage scaling of the weapon the player is wielding. Players may want to play around with various styles, and then use a Larva Tear once they are ready to commit to a specific one.

Updated by Chad Thesen on November 15, 2024: Elden Ring features many different stats, each of which will allow players to build towards different goals. Many stats can be used in conjunction to create vastly different builds revolving around Faith, all of which feel different to play. However, there are also predetermined incantation groups designed to work within the same builds. Some new builds have been added that focus on these thematic Faith builds. The first revolves around Dragon Communication incantations, which can be purchased by collecting hearts from the various dragons in the game. The other revolves around Frenzied Flame incantations.

6 Flame Faith Build

Burn Enemies To A Crisp With Ease

There are various types of enemies in the game, and a large number will be more vulnerable to Fire Damage than others. To deal as much Fire Damage as possible, players will want to take the Fire Knight’s Greatsword, and give it the Flame Affinity using an Ash of War such as Ash of War: Flame Spear. Working towards the best Fire Knight build can be an enjoyable goal while playing through Shadow of the Erdtree.

Players will also be using the Fire Knight’s Seal along with the associated incantations. All the pieces of gear and Talismans are designed to stack up damage to blaze through enemies and bosses alike. Only the helm and Armor pieces are important, so other armor should give as much defense as possible without affecting the player’s dodge roll.

5 Lightning Faith Build

Alternative Option For Casters

Just like there are enemies that are best dealt with using Fire Damage, there will also be some that players should hit with Lightning Damage instead — such as those heavily clad in armor and Silver Tears. In order for players to dish out as much Lightning Damage as they can, they will need to get some of the best lightning spells availabe in the game. For enemies that are resistant to Lightning Damage, such as those made of stone, the Frozen Lightning Spear is an excellent option.

Players will want the Blessed Blue Dew Talisman when not facing a boss, so that their FP is always being topped up. However, they should switch this for Shard of Alexanderwhen it comes time to topple a mighty foe. Maintaining Golden Vow up time will allow for even more damage output.

4 Blasphemous Herald Build

Incredibly Tanky From Healing Weapon Skill

Getting a Blasphemous Blade build up and running can make players feel like they have far more health than they should have, due to the Taker’s Flames Skill. Every time they use this, the player will recover over 10% of their maximum health — meaning both Faith and Vigor should be the player’s primary focus. While exploring, players should use Blessed Blue Dew Talisman to recover 1 FP every 2 seconds, but should switch this Talisman to Carian Filigreed Crestwhen fighting bosses.

Players can alternate between heavy-hitting jump attacks and a health recovery weapon skill, all buffed by Flame. Jump attacks will be even stronger thanks to Raptor’s Black Feathersand Claw Talisman, with Two-Headed Turtle Talismanallowing players to have plenty of Stamina recovery. While both Raptor’s Black Feathersand Claw Talismanare part of the original game, the Blessed Blue Dew Talismanwill only be available in the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC.

3 True Full Caster Build

Access Almost Every Spell In The Game

The total number of spells featured in the game has surpassed 200 with Shadow of the Erdtree. Players will want to get the Golden Order Seal for Incantations, and the Prince of Death’s Staff for Sorceries. These will both provide damage scaling at A for both Faith and Intelligence. Players will want to raise both these stats to 72 to be able to play the ultimate caster, prepared for any and every situation. It is worth noting that there are two spells that will most likely be out of the player’s reach with this build, since they cost 53 and 49 points in Arcane.

While Furious Furious Blade of Ansbach is an achievable goal, it will cause the build to suffer, and Arcane should be kept no higher than 18 to add Great Oracular Bubble to the player’s spell arsenal. The game provides many amazing Spirit Ashes for players, and this build encourages using them to take the attention off the player due to all the HP reduction. Having a good tank to attract all the aggro means players can decimate their foes from a safe distance.

2 Frenzied Flame Build

Balancing Faith and Arcane

While the full caster build above gives access to both Spells and Incantations, this one leans dominantly into Faith. As such, players will want the Frenzied Flame Sealfor casting these thematic spells due to it raising their damage by 20%. If a player has the Frenzied Flame Sealin both of their hands, this damage buff will stack. Players can have other seals they can swap between to gain bonuses when casting non-Frenzied Flame incantations against smaller enemies that are weaker to elements such as lightning.

Frenzied Burst is a long-range spell that can trivialize some routes of the game, thanks to how effectively it can one-shot enemies at long range. The The Flame of Frenzy is a more costly, but stronger, version of Unendurable Frenzy. This incantation will be perfect for punishing enemies once they provide a window of opportunity. This build is potent, but it is not the best for exploring, as it can run out of FP rather fast — so investing some points in Mind is a good call. This build is best used for linear progression, and once players have found the next Site of Grace, they can venture off to see what lies at the end of the next path before returning.

1 Beast Incantations Build

The Perfect Blend of Faith and Arcane

Another one of the thematic incantation sets that players will find will be the Beast incantations. This works well in a Strength/Faith build that lets the Tarnished use Guard Counter to wipe out weaker enemies, and make use of their Beast incantations to cover a wide range of situations. Players will use the Clawmark Seal, which scales with both Strength and Faith.

This means that players will want a weapon that also scales with these stats to deal damage, to make the most of Guard Counters and to Stance Break enemies. Players will want to bring along all the Beast Incantations they can get from giving Deathroots to the Beast Clergyman. There are 9 Deathroots in total, but the player only needs 8 of them to get all the Incantations, with the final one being Gurranq’s Beast Claw.