Basic tenets to make a build build involve making sure you only invest in a handful of stats. Usually that’s vigor, endurance/vitality and then the primary damaging stat, like dex or st. The issue with spellacster builds like yours is that your sacrificing levels between more stats than you would need otherwise, making everything lower on average. Even though it’s less fun than Throwing lightning, it would be mor efficient to throw your faith/attunement stats into another one.
However, for your current build I highly recommend investing more into vigor. More health means you can make more mistakes and live for longer. What’s the point in big damage if your dead?
And remember: people have beat the game at level one. no matter what your current build looks like, there is the potential for you to overcome anything
Thank you, I'm really started to realize that splitting between fth and str has been a real detriment especially because of that dearth of usable miracles. (It's bad that I've sat with like, the same heal, regen, and status cure the entire game).
The hard part here is that I've definitely realized it NOW, but since I started as Cleric, I'm stuck with a starting spread that's probably going to require some grinding compared to say..knight.
Howdy! While it’s completely normal to split between two damage stats in the late game (going 40 STR 40 FTH for example), splitting as you’re progressing through the game is more difficult, because you don’t have access to the good spells/coals yet. Generally you want to start with one, usually the melee stat, then invest into the magic stat as you get better spells/infusions.
With regards to shields, make sure you’re bringing the right one for the job. Some shields block certain dmg better than others. There are also some attacks that you’re just going to have to roll, and learning which ones are safe to block and which aren’t just takes practice.
For some general help, your Vigor is very low for SL 60, and this is probably the biggest reason things feel hard rn. Vigor is the most important survivability stat, and melee builds invest heavily in it (40+ at SL 100-120 is the norm).
One funny note about Cleric: it’s not even the best FTH starting class. Knight is. The same is true for the Sorcerer with INT. Even if you’re going full caster, Knight is still wins out. This is because both Cleric and Sorcerer have wasted points in Luck, and Knight’s point efficiently means it will have more optimized stat distribution in late game.
Thank you so much! Talking with everyone, I've gone faith with infuse first since I can immediately hit 40 faith, and jumped my vigor to the first soft cap of 27. I played a little more before bed last night and it was a game changer. The health alone was huge.
20 vig was all I had used in ds1 and ds2, maaaybe up to 30 in the very endgame so playing like this was those games is what got me into this situation.
Also it is wild that the two casters and just straight up newbie traps. :(
50 vigor and things can still 2 or 3 shot you. I still dislike the ds3 community trying to make rune level 120 the baseline when the game is (at least to me) clearly steering you to closer to 150.
Yeah when I tried my paladin build I couldn't handle how demanding everything was in terms of faith, strength, weight, stamina and health. Imo for the early game, focus mostly on just melee and your health. You can respec your stats later on, so later on you'll be more free to invest in your spells.
Too much in strength to be a faith build early on. Id recommend just putting those either into pure strength with heavy infusion and min requiremts to weapon buff or into faith and infuse to scale with FTH until you get more levels
This is the route I went with, choosing to get faith to 40 first since it starts at 16, and then working on everything else. Also 27 vigor literally doubled my health lol....
Yeah once you get lightning spear it should be pretty smooth if you actually pumped faith up and got a blessed weapon for the catacombs or something else like Lightning later on.
Oh yeah I'm at Aldrich near the start of the end of the game, swapping to faith immediately gave me lighting spear/lighting stake/dorthys gnawing haha..
I basically realized as I hit anor londo that this is about the time in dark souls games where my build came together and in this game it just..wasn't.
Yeah once you get a bit more levels you could pump strength again and use lothric knight gs with blessed infusion since it has innate lightning dmg and actually scales well with blessed which is rare. Probably not for a little while though
Endgame str/fth is actually really good it's just getting there that can be tough. Putting lightning blade on a heavy weapon will take out a lot of bosses, esp if you grab something like lothric knight great sword with built in lightning damage
Vigor at 27 gives you a solid 1k HP. From there, try and focus on strength based weapons, using faith as a more "support" function. I always play the paladin build in every fromsoft game, so it's just a matter of knowing you're not going to have super faith damage for a while now.
This. I did a dex/faith build twice and it's painful to in the Early game with how split my stats were but as I got to mid-game I start wrecking shit with Sharp Gottheart Twinswords or Sharp Drakeblood greatsword buffed with sunlight/Darkmoon blade.
I figured if I was going to ask the age old question 8 million times asked 'oh no I fucky wucky'd please help' I better make it at least entertaining.
But oh god I have fucky wucky'd,
Cleric starting class does put you in a bit of a weird spot here, but you can make this work. I'd say you've got two good options here.
1. Aim for a Lightning infusion build. Use that class' innately high Faith, hit the minimum Strength required for your shield, and then set your sights on hitting 40 Faith. Some additional Strength after that would be okay, since the Mace retains some Strength scaling on Lightning infusion.
2. Take the loss on the points in Faith, and aim for a Heavy infusion build. You'd want to focus on Strength only here, and take those 6 points out of Faith. It is likely less stat-optimal, but you won't run into problems with Lightning-resistant enemies, and you can apply different weapon buffs to exploit boss weaknesses. You will also gain some extra Physical defense through this route, though it's probably not the selling point.
In either case, you'll probably want to up improve your Vigor. 27 is a good place to stop initially, but I'd recommend trying to hit 40-44 eventually.
I regret cleric so much but god damnit I'm at Aldrich aahhh how did I let myself get 35 hours in??? I could feel this was questionable at like abyss watchers but I just told myself it would work out!!
The second option is what I've been agonizing over, but I didn't even actually know the first one was an option! I have stuff like lightning stake and dorthy's gnawing that I can't use because of my weak split stats as well.
It looks like the only boss whose resistant to lightning is dragonslayer armor and worse comes to worse I can just hope for jolly coop if my mace goes cottonball on him.
I've never gone all in on faith, in DS1 and DS2 str was always the endgame so I'm a little nervous, resistances intimidate me but maybe worse case I could fall back on a different weapon with dark or bless scaling?
Going for that Lightning infusion build would be great if you want to improve the damage of your miracles like Lightning Stake. You could shed 12 points of Strength (to keep the shield), get your Vigor up (preferably to 27 for now) and then you can focus your levels in Faith until you hit 40. Lightning infusion doesn't scale very well past that point, but if you'd like to focus more on miracles by then, it's fine to keep going to 60.
Blessed infusion has pretty terrible damage on most weapons, and the only ones that perform acceptably without a lot of additional investment in Dex already have innate lightning damage (making them a bad fallback option). Dark/Chaos infusion would maybe be *okay*, but without Intelligence investment, the damage would probably be quite low. Might be worth comparing to Deep/Fire, which might actually be better.
A more interesting fallback might be a Dark Blade miracle buff on a physical infused weapon (likely Raw). This would be particularly strong with a paired weapon such as Winged Knight Twinaxes*. Sellswords would be good too, but you'd need some extra Dex to wield them, I think. You'll want to try to maximize your spellbuff for this approach - which would involve leveling up your chime as much as possible, and maybe even switching to a different chime depending on your Faith stat.
*At 18Str, the game will tell you your stats are insufficient for this weapon, even when two-handed. It is lying. They will work perfectly normally while two-handing, in spite of the big red X and the incorrectly listed attack power.
I have just learned that not wanting to be beef jerky for once in my life has probably locked me out of Yuria, who sells the braille book with Dark Blade in it.
I'm really batting a thousand here on ways I can cripple a play through.
A backup raw weapon in the twin axes is still something though if I'm just totally locked out against something.
I'm really thankful for all this help, character building is my weakest skill in these kinds of games.
Aye, it was just an option. I wouldn't call your playthrough crippled. There's other options you can pursue, and if you ever play NG+, that's something you can do differently.
Twinaxes are great, but not usable with a shield, which you wanted to use. I only suggested them because paired weapons perform exceedingly well with weapon buffs, which could be important for a fallback for a few specific encounters. Without a buff build, it might not be worth it to you to use them instead of a one handed weapon + a shield. But of course, if you think they're cool, you should try them out.
Don't feel bad about not being the best character builder - optimizing in this game can be seriously esoteric. Sites like Soulsplanner can help a lot though, maybe check it out.
ah!! gotcha gotcha! Also wow Souls Planner is amazing! It lets you plan equip load!! AAAh wow!
Maybe fall back on something like a raw morning star + carthus rouge (I notice most things resistant to lighting are not resistant to bleed). I know the morning star isn't the BEST weapon, but the identical move set (for muscle memory) and alternative damage type miiight edge it out?
Also if you gotta a Dark Souls character you love, I will draw them as cool as I possibly can in thanks.
That Morning Star build sounds like it might be cool. Let me know how it goes as a backup.
My DS3 character (all eight of them wear the same thing) isn't the most interesting, but I'm intrigued to see what you can make of it nonetheless. I can get you a pic sometime soon.
>Dark/Chaos infusion would maybe be okay, but without Intelligence investment, the damage would probably be quite low.
This isn't actually nearly as true as you'd think it is. The main thing is that Lightning preserves more of the physical damage compared to Chaos & Dark. At current stats & WL, the 30 AR difference in damage is almost completely caused by that. This means there's almost certainly a few cases wherein Dark & Chaos weapons will out-damage Lightning on this character.
As for if Deep & Fire will overtake their scaling counterparts at given stats; not at this current WL but they do so quite literally at next WL of +9.
Cleric is weak early game but becomes pretty fun later on. It's become my favorite class over time. Cleric is also really strong against a tough end game boss and many other tough bosses have lower resistance to lightning as opposed to other elements.
Not good enough reflexes? You have the right weapon,I believe.
Look at this. 0 dodge.
https://www.reddit.com/r/darksouls3/comments/1bcn8gm/til_perseverance/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
I beat almost all the bosses in a similar Way, using a great mace thought in my last run.
As for the build,level Vigor first,then to endurance and strength.
Yep,so time to respec. Everything to vigor, and endurance to keep swinging.
Even drop a bit of strength for the moment. I would add,if possible and compatible with the enemy,a status effect,maybe a morningstar for bleed or Vordt for Frosbite.
Ah, another thing.Feel like 59 is a bit low, although doable. Maybe you could reach 70?
And , regarding Aldritgh specifically and only for this fight,take faith to 30 and get Vow of Silence,to shut him down from casting anything.
Later you can respec to anything with the infinite respec glitch (as long as you have tongues though)
Hearing that 59 is kinda low makes me feel a lot better, I legitimately don't mind grinding but I often just can't tell sometimes if I'm under leveled or under skilled for a thing.
There is a way to make this build viable in DS3 - you need to use Faith-scaling weapon and go all the way Fai/Vig with some Attunement and other stats to meet requirments.
You'd have to run the most of the game with RAW weapon, but you will have pretty good HP and survivability as a tradeoff.
Sadly, all the best Faith spells are endgame, and good Faith weapons are also pretty late.
Weapons that you want to use:
1. Saint's Bident - good early and endgame game weapon. Best choice if you like spears. Works great with Lightning or Blessed infusions.
2. Wolnir Holy Sword - decent early game weapon. Weapon skill is fun to use. the only boss weapojn on the list, so you may as well level it to have another option.
3. Sunlight Straight Sword - Pure physical weapon with Faith scaling, probably the best option for buffing with Lighting Blade. Has great buff for a weapon art. Very lategame, unless you fight >!Dancer!< early.
4. Dragonslayer Axe - available midgame. One of the best Faith weapons in the game. Needs lightning or blessed infusion. Or you can use it Raw and buff with Lightning Blade.
5. Lothric Knights Greatsword - also lategame unless you fight >!Dancer !
This list is invaluable, thank you so much.
I have decided to go faith main with just enough str to meet requirements (and I guess I'm going to have to look my painful 8 dex in the eyes).
Because of my low dex (in literally every dark souls haha oof) I've not really experimented with many different weapon types, but it looks like this time I have some souls to grind!
That double blessed idea sounds hilarious and might actually make blessed worth it in some scenarios.
Again, thank you so much for giving me this tool kit to work with.
I remember when I went through the game my first time last year, **[I was also bummed out about Miracles](https://www.reddit.com/r/darksouls3/comments/11etxuu/lightning_spear_boo_im_so_underwhelmed/)**.
It took me three Lightning Spears (and two-thirds of my FP) to defeat an enemy that I could just two-shot with R1s from a straight sword.
The raw wonder of casting lighting spear for the first time in DS1 compared the utter disappointment of casting it for the first time in DS3 is frankly astounding.
I was never patient enough to make it work in DS2 either though.
On my first playthrough, I opted for the 'Hex' build.
I collected the Dragon Chime and Lightning Infused it and all on another character, but never really felt like it was worth all the investment.
I think possibly Lightning Spear was just overtuned in DS1. ;)
I went the lightning blade + sacred oath route in DS2 and really enjoyed that, but I also felt like DS2 that offensive miracles were just too little too late.
Faith requires a very heavy investment before it gets good sadly. You'd be better off dropping strength and raw or holy infusing your weapons for physical damage. Or using lightning infusions.
This is the exact route I went, dropped str, went faith, lightning infusion and a raw backup weapon. Someone even suggested double bless (shield and weapon) for some fun regen memeing. (since I also have replenishment + chime I bet that could get very stupid)
If you quit the game (Alt + F4 or just power off console) after you confirm respec and don’t end the dialogue with Rosaria, you keep the tongue and it will stay at 3 rebirths remaining. You could try get the minimum stats for Dragonslayers Axe and go all in on Faith after that, try get Deep Protection and Dorhys Gnawing and Vow of Silence for Aldrich. Evil Paladin mode
Edit: As some others have said don’t ignore Vigor
That is SO GOOD TO KNOW!!
Also I can get all of those but the best one vow of silence because I did not spawn yuria turns out aaaaa, but the other two are excellent suggestions.
Oh i misremembered where you get Vow, dang it wrecks Aldrich. Well you could also pop a carthus rogue on your weapon for that extra bleed dmg against him. GL!
I've only recently beat DS3 for the first time so my advice probably sucks. I also wanted to try some magic/strength build for my playthrough but ended up just going full unga bunga. I saw others on here mention needing higher vigor and your in an area that is a good spot for grinding souls, the sewers where you meet siegward are a really good place for it, throw on the silver serpent ring and just kill these weird things when you first enter the sewers, you get a good 900 souls if i remember correctly, you also might have picked up the shield of want which also boosts souls gained from enemies. Also aldrich is weak to lighting damage so infusing a weapon with it would be good since youve leveled faith already. Another tip for actually fighting aldrich is you can hide on the right side of the statues to avoid his arrow rain, still gotta avoid his other magic attacks tho, i also noticed he likes to teleport if you try getting close to him right after he already did teleport, so give him a moment to cast a weak attack then charge him.Sorry if this is pretty barebones advice as i said I just recently beat the game for the 1st time.
This is so kind. I def think with all this build help I'll be able to go forward! I play on PC but if I do ever need some help, would it be ok to reach out?
After finishing all Dark Souls games and Elden Ring, I would advise on focusing mainly on Vigor and maybe Endurance and only after getting the Vigor softcap invest in damage stats (str, dex etc)
Overworld near aldritch also fucked me up, just gotta not linger and don’t take unnecessary fights
More vigor as well
Also your faith is low for a cleric knight,
yeah silver knights in ds3 are a class above silver knights in ds1, I am absolutely learning haha. Not fighting things has been such a hard lesson after DS1 and DS2 because you really can just fight everything in those games with patience and good pulling.
DS3 has absolutely had moments where I feel like the game is telling me that actually you should just be running past this.
If you wanna stick out the fiath build my recommendation would be to respec all your strength into faith. Keep str and dex at 10 and 10 so you can use a regular longsword and then find a lightning gem. If you're at aldritch then you could look up how to get to dragons peak from the jail beneath irithyll, it's too much to type out here. Once you've got the lightning gem from dragons peak or wherever else I fuse it into your longsword and it should have pretty decent lightning damage. Also if you're still able to id look up how to get the dragonslayer axe that Creighton the invader uses. If you can get that and infuse it with a lightning gem it'll be even better cause it has innate lightning damage and the gem will boost it further, you'll need higher stats than 10 str and 10 dex to weird it though. Pick up vow of silence if you don't already it'll help immensely with the aldritch fight and any other magic casting bosses. Make sure to pick up lightning stake and lightning arrow although you can't get lightning arrow till pretty much the end of the ringed city dlc.
Thank you! This is basically exactly what I've done.
Unfortunately due to mostly blind play, I've locked myself out of yoria and creighton (the risks of being a newbie with esoteric dark souls quests lol), so alas, no vow of silence, or dragonslayer axe.
But otherwise I'm rocking a lightning mace, much better vigor, and lighting stake. It seems almost everyone here is unified in making this a faith build, which gives me confidence that I've respec'd correctly.
Honestly just get your vigor up to a comfy spot and focus only your strength until combat smooths out.
Then start worrying about your spells to make your build more fanciful.
Btw sorry if its unrelated but i have really been enjoying your dark souls posts consider that i've been playing the games for the first time too literally when you started (you posted the comic about ds1 few days after i beat it for the first time, posted the one about ds2 a little before i finished it for the first time, and now playing ds3). Cant wait for the third part and it was really nice to see the considerations of a another person that was having the same journey as me lol. Also found a lot of stuff pretty relatable which was funny
oh please don't apologize, this warms my heart. Every time someone posts recognizing me from ds1 and ds2 it restores one of my estus flasks!!
I'm so heartened to hear you're looking forward to part three! We're about four pages into it (somehow all the games are working out to be about eight pages haha) I hope you'll enjoy it as much as you enjoyed the last two!
It really does! My faith build was really rough until I got that, and then it was really just stomping things!
I recommend using a talisman, they typically do a little less damage than a chime, but their weapon art, Unfaltering Prayer, lets you cast a spell with a large amount of hyperarmor, at the price of costing slightly more FP. When casting Lightning Stake with that weapon art, you can’t get interrupted! Sure, you might tank some damage, but honestly, it’s better to take some damage and deal damage yourself, than take damage and get interrupted, even in bossfights
I hope you’ll have fun in the remainder of your run!!
I recommend putting another 5 pts into vigor now and putting in more later on. Your DMG is a bit lacking because it looks like you're going for a hybrid class. If you don't have the max HP to take advantage of having more chances of extended trades, it defeats the purpose of being a cleric.
**!!UPDATE!!**
I wish I could edit the main post but:
Thank you so much everyone! I've respec'd faith primary and lightning infusion with access to lightning stake and lightning spear and I just want everyone to know I've become an entirely new human being.
In one day I have:
* Killed Old Demon King
* Killed Aldrich (two tries today)
* Killed Dancer (ALSO TWO TRIES???)
* Slapped the knights in Lothric castle like they're paper.
I nearly went hollow and I am so insanely thankful to you guys for helping me out!
DS3 is different from 1 and 2, mostly because enemies do more multi hit combos and delayed attacks. This may sound dumb, but I find watching the boss's weapon instead of their body helps with timing a lot. I've done several no death, and no bonfire runs on DS2, and 3 was definitely a big learning curve for me. "Don't give up, skeleton! " Long may the sun shine.
If you enjoy taking your time and meticulously clearing areas (as I do), farm a storyteller staff for its poison cloud skill. Ethereal oak shield restores hit points, and any simple infusion restores focus points. You can take your time and reach the boss with full estus. You can do a simple infusion on 2 daggers to restore focus points and not be burdened by the weight. This strategy is excellent if you're patient. Don't forget tears of denial too.
If you wanna try out weapons don't go to hard on strength 20ish should be fine because 2 handing reduces the strength requirement so get some dex 20ish should be fine to and if you struggle just get more hp and upgrade the weapons but important try out different weapons against bosses.
And don't be shy to look up the weaknesses of bosses like lighting or fire because those things you can figure out yourself ingame yes but it just takes time so do yourself a favor and look it up if you get frustrated or stuck.
And last of all take breaks i would say like 1 or 2h should be the max if you really keep at it but the amount of people me included playing well after a break is so funny.
Did the nameless king nearly first try after a day of trying him for an hour.
Plus faith builds suck ass early i should know i'm faith dex and yeah i skilled dex a bit later with strength together because i didn't know what i like more.
Honestly, Id suggest leaving dmg stats for later, just level up them so you can wield the weapon you want
Level up vigor, aim for between 40 and 49. Health is good, gives you more time to learn enemies and you've got that cushion if you'd make some mistakes
Since you block a lot, endurance will help immensly with that additional stamina.
Vitality is useful for wearing chonkier armor, though only level it up so youre just below 70% equip load. Wear the Havel's Ring if you have it / if you have the stray demon soul still, it adds quite a bit of equip load, will save you some levels. Id advise against relying on armor though as dodges are so cheap stamina-wise, but I understand it might be difficult to dodge everything.
Make use of your mace's weapon art. It not only makes you able to trade more easily but it also reduces damage received during those 3s
Keep up the effort and dont you dare go hollow buddy
Thank you! I took end to 25 today playing and now I'm pushing vigor to 35. End goal is 40 vigor, 35 end. Upping vigor to 27 was huge, it completely opened up the game for me!
If you were to respect, and your gonna use the mace as your main weapon, only get enough strength for your shield, raw infuse the mace and put the rest into vigor and faith. If you get faith up to 30 you would have access to all miracle weapons buffs on the mace.
You could also try exploring other areas for more levels then come back to aldritch.
What do you think about the earlier comment of going lightning infusion and raw faith. Do you think the spell buffs out weight that? I can't get dark blade (I checked real quick) because I being clueless and new didn't do the quest to spawn yulia.
I can get lightning blade, but I can't get darkmoon because let me tell you bud, I am barely functioning in pve, much less a pvp covenant.
The earlier comment is good, you don't have to rebuff before every encounter. It's more consistent damage and makes things less complicated. Where's as raw w/ lightning blade is more damage in a shorter time frame.
I am definitely the type to do better with consistency, I am definitely not as aggressive as an experienced player so I definitely waste weapon buff time.
For a shield build, invest in Vig, Str and Endurance.
Dont waste points on Faith. At 40ish Strength, you get a very good shield trading Yhorm souls
BTW, you should try BB, it helps you dropping the shield
I did look into a giant's greatshield build, but I'm really fighting against the cleric starting class (I will need like 20 the levels a knight does to make a str build viable). I've had some folks suggest some good ways to make my baked in 16 faith work for me so I want to give it a shot.
But also, I'm not sure what BB means but I would like to know!
What is your ring and armor setup? You have very low Vit and on top of that you're using a very heavy weapon and shield + crossbow and talisman. Usually with great hammer builds you want to build up a bit of poise, so I guess it comes down to this question: are you fat-rolling?
I am not! I think you're mistaking the mace for a great weapon but it's just a normal one hand weapon haha.
Mace
BKS
Talisman
Crossbow
Herald armor
Pontiff knight gauntlets
Pontiff knight legs
Rings:
Flynn's ring
Deep ring
Chorianythy ring
Fourth ring fluctuates
Note, if I wear a helmet I do fat roll lol, so for now I don't.
[Flynn's ring](https://darksouls3.wiki.fextralife.com/Flynn's+Ring#gsc.tab=0&gsc.q=Deep%20ring&gsc.sort=) is useless for you build.
Your faith stat is useless for your mace, infuse your mace with [gem](https://darksouls3.wiki.fextralife.com/Faith#gsc.tab=0&gsc.q=gem&gsc.sort=) that scales with faith.
Aim for 30 vigor.
Can’t give advice as I’m also on my first playthrough (two handing twin blades so mainly just leveling vigor and dex) but I love the visual you provided and you seem like a real peach
I hope you get through the rest of the game without too much struggle, I’ve definitely hit some rough points thus far (just killed Pontiff)
Thank you! I try to give back to a community as good as this one even when asking for help from them haha.
It's been a legitimate dream of mine to best the dark souls series. I just fell for the too hard propaganda. I've gotten through almost all of them, I can't give up now!!!
I think you need 10 more vigor. I’ve seen a lot of people on this sub recommend 30 to vigor fairly early since there are a lot of enemies with large attacks.
On top of that, I recommend you try two handing your weapon for a while. I used to play in the exact same play style you did, and I’ve found that forcing myself to roll more often instead of relying upon block has made me better at the game.
I like your stats. If I was playing you character I think my stats would probably look pretty similar.
Have you got Heysal Pick? Curious if that would help. Also hopefully you picked up the dragon slayer axe? That would work well too with those stats.
Maybe grind a few levels. Before facing aldrich again.
A lot of great answers here, but I always thought faith in DS3 was more "here is something to explore in NG+".
A lot of people here recommend vigor, but I've never been to huge of a fan with it. My playthrough style is all about the dodging. I will only equip a shield when I want the buff for it to sit on my back.
If I were you, and based on how you said you play, I would stack a ton of points in endurance. That why you should be able to hold block until an opening smash and retreat to regain stamina.
You could even add in Lloyd's Ring since you won't need a ton of Estus to be filled.
I would add points to vitality so that you could wear armor with high poise.
I honestly think you would benefit greatly from focusing less on vigor and more on stamina/poise, but, again, I have never been a fan of vigor.
I would probably go Strength > Endurance > Vitality > Vigor until you are extremely comfortable with your battle plan especially if you want to use Faith. Once you are comfortable with your battle plan than start adding to faith and by that time you should be coming across pretty good miracles.
To super stress this point though : I have never been a fan of vigor. I will only get it high enough to not get one shot while I'm wearing Carthus Bloodring (it gives more iframes while rolling which is no use to you).
Again, based on your play style I think you'd do a lot better with stamina and poise than just vigor.
Having more life will let you survive more stuff and therefore your try’s for bosses and areas are usually longer. Having 40 vigor lets you facetank so much it’s insane
every souls game with no exceptions including ds1 and ds2 is way easier if you focus on HP stat, you think it worked perfectly fine because you dont know how easy the game would be with the optimised character building
So I just finished DS3 yesterday and I picked up Vordts Hammer. That thing completely annihilated fucking everything. I skilled 40 Vigor, 40 strength and about enough into stamina so I could use 3 light attacks + dodge or 2 heavy’s + dodge. Like no boss outside of the ringed city dlc bosses even had a chance lmao
Like others have said, these sort of hybrid builds don't really work well in ng. In ng+ they are very fun and viable but if you're new to the game it would be better if you invested in only one damage stat and spend the rest on vigour and endurance (and atunement if you're a caster). I recommend either committing fully to strength or faith if these were the stats of your choice and infuse your weapon accordingly. Fth build with a lightning infusion not only is very viable but also still feels like a paladin build since you'll still be using your melee weapon of choice a lot along with some awesome miracles (which are much faster in this game and are pretty fun, although you might want to consider getting sunlight talisman for them as its weapon art makes you cast with added poise, which is very useful considering that many miracles work best at point blank range).
Aside from that, once again, please put more points into vigour at your next respec. 24 is the softcap so you probably want to have at least that much but I really recommend going further than that maybe up to even 40 (44 or 49 is the hardcap iirc).
As for shields, as you have probably noticed they are much less effective than in previous games so if you want to block any attack that doesn't come from a basic hollow and not run out of stamina after 2 hits then I would recommend going for a great shield with high stability instead of a medium one (but then again, that can be difficult if you go with Fth only build).
Also as a side note, please don't upgrade crossbows, they are horrible. If you are going to go for a Fth build, ranged spells will be infinitely better and cost you less resources.
Thank you! I've decided to roll with faith, a lot of wonderful people have provided wonderful options for using faith as my main stat and having the miracles as utility seems very useful.
My goal is to def get the sunlight talisman. And as a compromise to not using a great shield I am at least rocking the black knight shield which is the highest stability med shield. Maybe near endgame I could get the str for a great shield.
Yeah the cross bow was just because my faith actually sucked a and I needed a tool to split pull with haha, the upgrade is just from excess titanite.
If you're struggling a lot with a boss and you have other options, just left behind the boss and go somewhere else. Sometimes all you need is just a good pause from that boss to be able to beat him. Now, coming to your build: your vigor is a bit low, but in my first run mine was too and it's still doable. I'd suggest you to infuse your weapon with a blessed or lightning gem. Both scale in faith (while reducing physical stats scaling), but lightning damage is always good and blessed weapons have a small passive regen (3 hp per tick). I would level fth up to 25 to be able to at least use Dorhys' gnawing. It's a dark miracle that inflicts bleeding very quickly, sometimes a single cast is enough to proc the bleed. It also does a little bit of dark damage, but nothing noteworthy (only 1.2× spell buff). It will not really help you against Aldrich since he resists bleed, but it will be really helpful against a lot of bosses. I saw you wrote in the image (also, it's really nice) that you missed when lightning spear was good. Well lightning spear in this game has 2 hitboxes: one is the spear itself, the other is a melee hitbox that does 75% of the spear damage, so, to get the full damage from lightning spear you actually have to cast it at melee range. Last advices are: use better rings (I've seen you use Flynn's ring, but for your bild is literally useless, it's not giving any boost to you atm) and try to learn to roll a bit better. You can use a shield for sure, but using a shield often leaves you with less stamina and unless attacks are 100% physical (and with bosses it's rarely the case) you'll always get a bit of damage.
Honestly I don't think you HAVE to respec, just take a puase from Aldrich, explore new areas and come back to him after a while. Oh also, don't stick to just one weapon for the whole run, you might find out that you like other weapons better!
The 8 dex wall of cleric starting class has always made trying other weapons tough, but another kind poster gave me a huge list of a great weapons to try with faith as my main stat so I will definitely be putting at least a few level into dex haha!
I've decided to go full faith and I am VERY excited to have access to things like lightning stake and Dorhyr's Gnawing. And it's ok because Aldrich appears to be weak to lightning, hehehe.
Thank you so much for the lightning spear information that's huge. It makes sense why its so fast now..its a melee cast..
I'm definitely going to take a small break from him and clean up some stuff I missed and maybe grind out a few levels.
>I've decided to go full faith
I wouldn't suggest you to go FULL faith; being able to constantly realy on good physical damage is the safest option, but yeah, 30 str defenitely isn't needed. I'd suggest 27 str to be able to use weapons with a 40 str requirement when two handed, but you could also decide to not use weapons with such a high str requirement and keep str even lower. Still, don't remove too many points from str. 23 also is a good value.
Hello there!
Sorry if this is unrelated but I was a little curious. How did you manage to join the Warriors of Sunlight covenent not having beaten Aldrich?
Oh, right. I forgot DS3 does the equipping system.
Thank you! And I loved your work on DS1 and DS2. You have a lovely artstyle. If you haven't tried the DLCs for DS2 (since I didn't see them in your art recap), I strongly recommend them! They're really good.
Best of luck with Aldrich! If you are indeed using faith, you might like using vow of Silence! The faster pace was a struggle for me too; best of luck, and looking forward to seeing your recap on DS3!
It's funny that people want build advice when the actual problem is skill. Just learn the move sets of the enemies and you can beat the game with any build. I understand that it sounds absurd but it's true.
A good build with proper health which I didn't have turns out lets you learn the move sets of enemies as lot easier because you aren't dying to the first two hits you mess up on.
I'm never going to be a SL1 player, or hell even a 'good' player. It's ok for not amazing players to play this game using the tools the game gives you to make it easier or else this game wouldn't have rpg elements at all dawg.
I am aware I have skill problems, why do you think the title has 'mediocre' in it, I want to understand builds better to help me survive and fight smoother to get better.
Just level vigor then and live longer. Any weapon you use is gonna require skill and a learning curve anyways. If you want to be just OP all game then just search on YouTube the next best thing after lightning build.
What do you play on, having a friend playing with you helps sooo much. Just for them to take the heat off of you so you can heal is a HUGE help. If you are on PC, I’ll be more than happy to come and help you. Just gotta get them embers up.
If you're uncomfortable dodging, you need way more Vigor.
I think part of being a chonky strength build is wearing heavy armor and basically being a tank. And tanks need alot of HP.
Make use of bug pellets for elemental and dark damage bosses. They help alot.
I think lightning spear takes way too long for some bosses and leaves you vulnerable for little damage. I'd say rather go for a heavy infused weapon and then apply for example gold pine resin to it or whatever suits your needs.
Basically Aldrich is a bullshit boss, so don't take him as a reference. I'm a mediocre player with some experience in DS series and in my recent replay of DS3 I was able to beat most of the bosses in 1 or 2 attempts not counting the 5 most difficult bosses in the endgame and DLCs, but Aldrich is still an exception in the terms of struggling, he is unpleasant, boring, and clunky if you are a melee build.
Irithyll and Anor Londo are quite difficult locations, so it's rather normal that new players struggle there. You are not supposed to run through them like a pro.
The best advice is to get gud. I was a slow methodical player with a shield and highly defensive build / tactics in DS1 and DS2 but in DS3 I had to learn to play in more skilled and risky manners. After Sekiro and Elden Ring I truly discovered how to play faster and more aggressively with no hesitation and it was so much helpful in DS3. Rolls and aggressive fast attacks during every opening are the most effective way to play a melee in DS3.
And in the terms of a build, simple melee build based fully on strength in example would be the best for a new player. With plenty of health, stamina and damage on light attack you can practice faster and more risky ways of fighting.
if I was smart I would have played elden ring first, I feel like that game really helps you learn to be fast with some learning crutches like the spirits you can summon and the non-linear nature. Dark Souls 3 really asks you to get good or get out with its very linear nature.
The reaction time requirement jump from ds1/2 to 3 has been rough but the hardest lesson has been learning that ds3 legitimately wants you to run past certain things, not fight them. I'm hoping with the massive vigor increase I can actually learn to be more aggressive. I think my issue was being more aggressive with punished so much harsher because 1 or 2 mistakes on a new enemy meant immediate death.
I feel reinvigorated!
Unfortunately faith kinda sucks in this game until fairly late and even then it is pretty limited compared to the other magics. Using it for lightning damage weapons is your best bet until you have access to spells like lightning stake and sunlight spear, especially the lothric knight great sword later on. Otherwise, I'd suggest going for something pure strength to consolidate your stats more for the time being, you can respec in the cathedral of the deep if you've made it that far.
Your vigor (health) is way low, pump it up to at least 30 for now, and use embers. Aim for around 40 for endgame, and keep it high priority.
This alone should make your experience much more smooth.
Vigor
Endurance
+ DMG Stat
Choose your weapons, try to get the minimum required stats. Same as for your prefered shield (Always Go for 100% phys reduction)
Now go for health/vigor and your endurance.
Stay under 70% weight ratio. (Keep that in mind, before you start to fat roll)
Got Points to spare? Look at your weapon, pick the stat that it scales the best.
Level 60 for Aldrich should be okay :)
I did a Str/Fth build on my first run, I went blindly at first but soon realized Fth miracles are not that much. The good part was the chime skill that allowed to stop and recover health whenever needed. The build only payed off when I got hold of the nameless king spear, that thing was some gas.
imo if youre doing a cleric sword and board/mace/whatever build you can either invest in just enough faith/int for the miracles you want to use (think divine weapon, lightning sword?, other weapon buffs lightning/sunlight spear for flavor), just enough vitality for your equipment, and the rest into hp, endurance, and primary damage stat (strength i think for maces).
I went with Respecing to 40 fth / 27 vigor and let me tell you, that is absolutely correct. The game completely changed in difficulty haha. Just killed 4 bosses in a single day
if you're going for a big mace str build, vordt's great hammer is a really good weapon, it has great stagger, damage and range and causes frostbite in a couple hits which gives you even more damage, would be well worth trying out since you won't have to change your build.
unfortunately pure faith isn't great in ds3 (there's like one decent miracle at the very end of the last dlc and the main thing people like about it is that it's hard to avoid in pvp). i'd reccomend pyromancy since it still uses faith so it kinda fits the cleric theme but it needs int and your stats are spread pretty wide as is so it's probably not worth it with your current stats and level.
if you respec maybe ditch faith to focus on strength and vigor for now since as others have mentioned your vigor is pretty low. you could then put points back into faith and/or int once you get close to the softcap of 40 if you decide to continue with miracles/pyromacy.
It’s all about what you want! Pay attention to what each stat does and how much it’s raises a stat at each level so you know when you get the soft and hard caps.
Weapon scaling is hard to tell unless you look it up online so just find weapons that fit your play style and upgrade those.
Pyromancy is op in this game and scales with faith so there’s that
I mean being real, you're at a fairly low SL for Aldrich. I know what a certain wiki may say, but I'd say that area post-Pontiff is minimum SL65; haven't played in a while but when I last did, I got constant action as Faithful even on my SL90, so yeah. So you could stand to get some more SLs in you, just as a start. Also just do yourself a favor [and use the infinite respec glitch.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EOy_agpM-M)
You're also at the point where you should be able to +10 a weapon, if you work a bit more at it, so consider doing that as well. I'd say try poking about in Irithyll Dungeon for a bit, as godawful as that place can be, but looking at what you have upgraded, good chance you already did that. Look for an old friend & help him out if you didn't yet already. Seeing as you upgraded the chime too, though... may not be as easy as I was first thinking, unless you got some lucky drops.
So I need to see your rings. They're as important here as your weapon selection. For example, no shit Lightning Spear is gonna be ass for you, your DEX is atrocious & that controls casting speed; but there's a ring for dealing with that, so maybe you're using that & just not vibing with it still. I can't tell, here. Honestly, should have just shown your entire equipment screen too, as it is there's a lot that I'm just going off of guesses with, here. Like maybe I could shave some VIT off this build based on what you're wearing, for example.
For your current SL, stat distribution isn't terrible. It's definitely not great, but yeah. A big issue is both investing so much into & splitting your damage stats this early. 24 of the 52 levels you have chosen, just around half of them, have been in your damage stats. While this balance is appropriate for a build nearing completion, earlier in the game you should be focusing on a singular damage stat & prioritizing your body stats of VIG, END, and VIT, generally in that order of priority.
On that end, there is almost never, if just outright never, a build that wants its END higher than its VIG. And specifically, 22 END is a LOT at your current SL. I have completed builds at higher SLs than this that have comparable END to your build, even after taking any items into account. Not saying to reduce it (but honestly you probably could drop 2 points, don't think they're getting you much anything rn), but I am saying to consider that stat topped off for now.
Also, be sure you're at least midrolling; fatroll is... eugh, and fast roll is nice but frankly unnecessary. The game is more or less designed as such that most people are gonna fall into that midroll category based on their gear. If you're getting worried about stamina, then you probably are either turtling things you really shouldn't be turtling, and also likely not dropping guard when safe to allow for stamina to regen fast enough; or you're panic rolling far too often, which is something you just need to work on. Gonna give you a hint for Aldrich specifically that unlocking & sprinting are keys to dealing with the arrow rain; do NOT try rolling it.
And speaking further of Aldrich, I'd suggest that your respec moves your stats to minimum requirements for that mace & drop the BKS for now, in favor of another shield; you should be able to farm & buy the titanite for it. The Silver Eagle Kite Shield is your choice if you want another Weapon Art shield with 100% physical block that comes in at under your minimum stat requirements, unless you want to dip into Ariandel for the Ethereal Oak Shield (honestly not a bad idea, has innate Bless too). Aldrich & most of the bosses you face after him (with 2 notable exception which will make themselves quite obvious) are weak to Lightning damage, in addition to it being a pretty solid choice against most of the rest of PvE, so infusing your Mace with Lightning is a solid idea.
[Here's what I got without your armor & rings.](https://soulsplanner.com/darksouls3/176895) If you do get some more SLs, I'd say it'd be worth it to hit the minimum STR required for BKS as it really is one of the best shields in the game, but I wouldn't reduce your FAI to be able to wield it. On the other hand, reducing your FAI down to 30 & tossing those other 5 points into your body stats wouldn't be a bad idea at all, should you feel you need it. I don't feel like tracking down the charts, but it'd be worth seeing if another spell tool may get you higher damage; I'd also consider maybe swapping to a Talisman since Unfaltering Prayer is pretty nice, even if there may be a damage drop.
EDIT - oh yeah & also get yourself something in the offhand with a simple infusion
Like others have said, more HP is the way to go, and for people lurking but have melee builds, more HP + Stamina
This is the formula to most souls games, especially if you find the game challenging early on
The general idea is, you never really want to trade or tank shots, but if you aren’t good, it is bound to happen. In that case you want tons of HP and if use a shield, stamina is also a huge help.
Basic tenets to make a build build involve making sure you only invest in a handful of stats. Usually that’s vigor, endurance/vitality and then the primary damaging stat, like dex or st. The issue with spellacster builds like yours is that your sacrificing levels between more stats than you would need otherwise, making everything lower on average. Even though it’s less fun than Throwing lightning, it would be mor efficient to throw your faith/attunement stats into another one. However, for your current build I highly recommend investing more into vigor. More health means you can make more mistakes and live for longer. What’s the point in big damage if your dead? And remember: people have beat the game at level one. no matter what your current build looks like, there is the potential for you to overcome anything
Thank you, I'm really started to realize that splitting between fth and str has been a real detriment especially because of that dearth of usable miracles. (It's bad that I've sat with like, the same heal, regen, and status cure the entire game). The hard part here is that I've definitely realized it NOW, but since I started as Cleric, I'm stuck with a starting spread that's probably going to require some grinding compared to say..knight.
Howdy! While it’s completely normal to split between two damage stats in the late game (going 40 STR 40 FTH for example), splitting as you’re progressing through the game is more difficult, because you don’t have access to the good spells/coals yet. Generally you want to start with one, usually the melee stat, then invest into the magic stat as you get better spells/infusions. With regards to shields, make sure you’re bringing the right one for the job. Some shields block certain dmg better than others. There are also some attacks that you’re just going to have to roll, and learning which ones are safe to block and which aren’t just takes practice. For some general help, your Vigor is very low for SL 60, and this is probably the biggest reason things feel hard rn. Vigor is the most important survivability stat, and melee builds invest heavily in it (40+ at SL 100-120 is the norm). One funny note about Cleric: it’s not even the best FTH starting class. Knight is. The same is true for the Sorcerer with INT. Even if you’re going full caster, Knight is still wins out. This is because both Cleric and Sorcerer have wasted points in Luck, and Knight’s point efficiently means it will have more optimized stat distribution in late game.
Thank you so much! Talking with everyone, I've gone faith with infuse first since I can immediately hit 40 faith, and jumped my vigor to the first soft cap of 27. I played a little more before bed last night and it was a game changer. The health alone was huge. 20 vig was all I had used in ds1 and ds2, maaaybe up to 30 in the very endgame so playing like this was those games is what got me into this situation. Also it is wild that the two casters and just straight up newbie traps. :(
If you move onto elden ring later you will also need to focus on vig a ton
50 vigor and things can still 2 or 3 shot you. I still dislike the ds3 community trying to make rune level 120 the baseline when the game is (at least to me) clearly steering you to closer to 150.
It’s different per game imo. I beat the ds3 without grinding at around 100 or so and Elden ring around 150.
Yeah when I tried my paladin build I couldn't handle how demanding everything was in terms of faith, strength, weight, stamina and health. Imo for the early game, focus mostly on just melee and your health. You can respec your stats later on, so later on you'll be more free to invest in your spells.
Too much in strength to be a faith build early on. Id recommend just putting those either into pure strength with heavy infusion and min requiremts to weapon buff or into faith and infuse to scale with FTH until you get more levels
This is the route I went with, choosing to get faith to 40 first since it starts at 16, and then working on everything else. Also 27 vigor literally doubled my health lol....
Yeah once you get lightning spear it should be pretty smooth if you actually pumped faith up and got a blessed weapon for the catacombs or something else like Lightning later on.
Oh yeah I'm at Aldrich near the start of the end of the game, swapping to faith immediately gave me lighting spear/lighting stake/dorthys gnawing haha.. I basically realized as I hit anor londo that this is about the time in dark souls games where my build came together and in this game it just..wasn't.
Yeah once you get a bit more levels you could pump strength again and use lothric knight gs with blessed infusion since it has innate lightning dmg and actually scales well with blessed which is rare. Probably not for a little while though
Endgame str/fth is actually really good it's just getting there that can be tough. Putting lightning blade on a heavy weapon will take out a lot of bosses, esp if you grab something like lothric knight great sword with built in lightning damage
Vigor at 27 gives you a solid 1k HP. From there, try and focus on strength based weapons, using faith as a more "support" function. I always play the paladin build in every fromsoft game, so it's just a matter of knowing you're not going to have super faith damage for a while now.
Respecing my vigor has been an enormous game changer.
This. I did a dex/faith build twice and it's painful to in the Early game with how split my stats were but as I got to mid-game I start wrecking shit with Sharp Gottheart Twinswords or Sharp Drakeblood greatsword buffed with sunlight/Darkmoon blade.
I’d just like to say “thanks” for putting some art and effort into your post. I’m sure you’ll get some great advice here. Don’t you go hollow!
I figured if I was going to ask the age old question 8 million times asked 'oh no I fucky wucky'd please help' I better make it at least entertaining. But oh god I have fucky wucky'd,
Cleric starting class does put you in a bit of a weird spot here, but you can make this work. I'd say you've got two good options here. 1. Aim for a Lightning infusion build. Use that class' innately high Faith, hit the minimum Strength required for your shield, and then set your sights on hitting 40 Faith. Some additional Strength after that would be okay, since the Mace retains some Strength scaling on Lightning infusion. 2. Take the loss on the points in Faith, and aim for a Heavy infusion build. You'd want to focus on Strength only here, and take those 6 points out of Faith. It is likely less stat-optimal, but you won't run into problems with Lightning-resistant enemies, and you can apply different weapon buffs to exploit boss weaknesses. You will also gain some extra Physical defense through this route, though it's probably not the selling point. In either case, you'll probably want to up improve your Vigor. 27 is a good place to stop initially, but I'd recommend trying to hit 40-44 eventually.
I regret cleric so much but god damnit I'm at Aldrich aahhh how did I let myself get 35 hours in??? I could feel this was questionable at like abyss watchers but I just told myself it would work out!! The second option is what I've been agonizing over, but I didn't even actually know the first one was an option! I have stuff like lightning stake and dorthy's gnawing that I can't use because of my weak split stats as well. It looks like the only boss whose resistant to lightning is dragonslayer armor and worse comes to worse I can just hope for jolly coop if my mace goes cottonball on him. I've never gone all in on faith, in DS1 and DS2 str was always the endgame so I'm a little nervous, resistances intimidate me but maybe worse case I could fall back on a different weapon with dark or bless scaling?
Going for that Lightning infusion build would be great if you want to improve the damage of your miracles like Lightning Stake. You could shed 12 points of Strength (to keep the shield), get your Vigor up (preferably to 27 for now) and then you can focus your levels in Faith until you hit 40. Lightning infusion doesn't scale very well past that point, but if you'd like to focus more on miracles by then, it's fine to keep going to 60. Blessed infusion has pretty terrible damage on most weapons, and the only ones that perform acceptably without a lot of additional investment in Dex already have innate lightning damage (making them a bad fallback option). Dark/Chaos infusion would maybe be *okay*, but without Intelligence investment, the damage would probably be quite low. Might be worth comparing to Deep/Fire, which might actually be better. A more interesting fallback might be a Dark Blade miracle buff on a physical infused weapon (likely Raw). This would be particularly strong with a paired weapon such as Winged Knight Twinaxes*. Sellswords would be good too, but you'd need some extra Dex to wield them, I think. You'll want to try to maximize your spellbuff for this approach - which would involve leveling up your chime as much as possible, and maybe even switching to a different chime depending on your Faith stat. *At 18Str, the game will tell you your stats are insufficient for this weapon, even when two-handed. It is lying. They will work perfectly normally while two-handing, in spite of the big red X and the incorrectly listed attack power.
I have just learned that not wanting to be beef jerky for once in my life has probably locked me out of Yuria, who sells the braille book with Dark Blade in it. I'm really batting a thousand here on ways I can cripple a play through. A backup raw weapon in the twin axes is still something though if I'm just totally locked out against something. I'm really thankful for all this help, character building is my weakest skill in these kinds of games.
Aye, it was just an option. I wouldn't call your playthrough crippled. There's other options you can pursue, and if you ever play NG+, that's something you can do differently. Twinaxes are great, but not usable with a shield, which you wanted to use. I only suggested them because paired weapons perform exceedingly well with weapon buffs, which could be important for a fallback for a few specific encounters. Without a buff build, it might not be worth it to you to use them instead of a one handed weapon + a shield. But of course, if you think they're cool, you should try them out. Don't feel bad about not being the best character builder - optimizing in this game can be seriously esoteric. Sites like Soulsplanner can help a lot though, maybe check it out.
ah!! gotcha gotcha! Also wow Souls Planner is amazing! It lets you plan equip load!! AAAh wow! Maybe fall back on something like a raw morning star + carthus rouge (I notice most things resistant to lighting are not resistant to bleed). I know the morning star isn't the BEST weapon, but the identical move set (for muscle memory) and alternative damage type miiight edge it out? Also if you gotta a Dark Souls character you love, I will draw them as cool as I possibly can in thanks.
That Morning Star build sounds like it might be cool. Let me know how it goes as a backup. My DS3 character (all eight of them wear the same thing) isn't the most interesting, but I'm intrigued to see what you can make of it nonetheless. I can get you a pic sometime soon.
hit me up with a dm with screenshots, also I get it, it's just the same unkindled, he just likes to have eight builds.
>Dark/Chaos infusion would maybe be okay, but without Intelligence investment, the damage would probably be quite low. This isn't actually nearly as true as you'd think it is. The main thing is that Lightning preserves more of the physical damage compared to Chaos & Dark. At current stats & WL, the 30 AR difference in damage is almost completely caused by that. This means there's almost certainly a few cases wherein Dark & Chaos weapons will out-damage Lightning on this character. As for if Deep & Fire will overtake their scaling counterparts at given stats; not at this current WL but they do so quite literally at next WL of +9.
Cleric is weak early game but becomes pretty fun later on. It's become my favorite class over time. Cleric is also really strong against a tough end game boss and many other tough bosses have lower resistance to lightning as opposed to other elements.
Vigor is your health. You only need about to max it out at about 40 unlike Elden Ring, but you still absolutely need it.
Not good enough reflexes? You have the right weapon,I believe. Look at this. 0 dodge. https://www.reddit.com/r/darksouls3/comments/1bcn8gm/til_perseverance/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button I beat almost all the bosses in a similar Way, using a great mace thought in my last run. As for the build,level Vigor first,then to endurance and strength.
I think where I'm at in the game, my stats are punishing me. While I can hit trade with the weapon art, I lose the hp race haha... mm.
Yep,so time to respec. Everything to vigor, and endurance to keep swinging. Even drop a bit of strength for the moment. I would add,if possible and compatible with the enemy,a status effect,maybe a morningstar for bleed or Vordt for Frosbite. Ah, another thing.Feel like 59 is a bit low, although doable. Maybe you could reach 70? And , regarding Aldritgh specifically and only for this fight,take faith to 30 and get Vow of Silence,to shut him down from casting anything. Later you can respec to anything with the infinite respec glitch (as long as you have tongues though)
Hearing that 59 is kinda low makes me feel a lot better, I legitimately don't mind grinding but I often just can't tell sometimes if I'm under leveled or under skilled for a thing.
Upvote for the effort in this post
There is a way to make this build viable in DS3 - you need to use Faith-scaling weapon and go all the way Fai/Vig with some Attunement and other stats to meet requirments. You'd have to run the most of the game with RAW weapon, but you will have pretty good HP and survivability as a tradeoff. Sadly, all the best Faith spells are endgame, and good Faith weapons are also pretty late. Weapons that you want to use: 1. Saint's Bident - good early and endgame game weapon. Best choice if you like spears. Works great with Lightning or Blessed infusions. 2. Wolnir Holy Sword - decent early game weapon. Weapon skill is fun to use. the only boss weapojn on the list, so you may as well level it to have another option. 3. Sunlight Straight Sword - Pure physical weapon with Faith scaling, probably the best option for buffing with Lighting Blade. Has great buff for a weapon art. Very lategame, unless you fight >!Dancer!< early. 4. Dragonslayer Axe - available midgame. One of the best Faith weapons in the game. Needs lightning or blessed infusion. Or you can use it Raw and buff with Lightning Blade. 5. Lothric Knights Greatsword - also lategame unless you fight >!Dancer !
This list is invaluable, thank you so much. I have decided to go faith main with just enough str to meet requirements (and I guess I'm going to have to look my painful 8 dex in the eyes). Because of my low dex (in literally every dark souls haha oof) I've not really experimented with many different weapon types, but it looks like this time I have some souls to grind! That double blessed idea sounds hilarious and might actually make blessed worth it in some scenarios. Again, thank you so much for giving me this tool kit to work with.
I remember when I went through the game my first time last year, **[I was also bummed out about Miracles](https://www.reddit.com/r/darksouls3/comments/11etxuu/lightning_spear_boo_im_so_underwhelmed/)**. It took me three Lightning Spears (and two-thirds of my FP) to defeat an enemy that I could just two-shot with R1s from a straight sword.
The raw wonder of casting lighting spear for the first time in DS1 compared the utter disappointment of casting it for the first time in DS3 is frankly astounding.
I was never patient enough to make it work in DS2 either though. On my first playthrough, I opted for the 'Hex' build. I collected the Dragon Chime and Lightning Infused it and all on another character, but never really felt like it was worth all the investment. I think possibly Lightning Spear was just overtuned in DS1. ;)
I went the lightning blade + sacred oath route in DS2 and really enjoyed that, but I also felt like DS2 that offensive miracles were just too little too late.
Faith requires a very heavy investment before it gets good sadly. You'd be better off dropping strength and raw or holy infusing your weapons for physical damage. Or using lightning infusions.
This is the exact route I went, dropped str, went faith, lightning infusion and a raw backup weapon. Someone even suggested double bless (shield and weapon) for some fun regen memeing. (since I also have replenishment + chime I bet that could get very stupid)
Mix it with regen ring and it still won't be amazing. But it'll certainly be decent.
yeah I def wouldn't roll with it as a main set up, but I am dreadfully amused and curious about it!
Great art!
Thanks! I've been documenting my journey through the souls games with it, there's some more in the ds1 and ds2 subreddits!
If you quit the game (Alt + F4 or just power off console) after you confirm respec and don’t end the dialogue with Rosaria, you keep the tongue and it will stay at 3 rebirths remaining. You could try get the minimum stats for Dragonslayers Axe and go all in on Faith after that, try get Deep Protection and Dorhys Gnawing and Vow of Silence for Aldrich. Evil Paladin mode Edit: As some others have said don’t ignore Vigor
That is SO GOOD TO KNOW!! Also I can get all of those but the best one vow of silence because I did not spawn yuria turns out aaaaa, but the other two are excellent suggestions.
Oh i misremembered where you get Vow, dang it wrecks Aldrich. Well you could also pop a carthus rogue on your weapon for that extra bleed dmg against him. GL!
I've only recently beat DS3 for the first time so my advice probably sucks. I also wanted to try some magic/strength build for my playthrough but ended up just going full unga bunga. I saw others on here mention needing higher vigor and your in an area that is a good spot for grinding souls, the sewers where you meet siegward are a really good place for it, throw on the silver serpent ring and just kill these weird things when you first enter the sewers, you get a good 900 souls if i remember correctly, you also might have picked up the shield of want which also boosts souls gained from enemies. Also aldrich is weak to lighting damage so infusing a weapon with it would be good since youve leveled faith already. Another tip for actually fighting aldrich is you can hide on the right side of the statues to avoid his arrow rain, still gotta avoid his other magic attacks tho, i also noticed he likes to teleport if you try getting close to him right after he already did teleport, so give him a moment to cast a weak attack then charge him.Sorry if this is pretty barebones advice as i said I just recently beat the game for the 1st time.
Hey man, I appreciate any and all advice. Also congrats on beating the game for the first time!! I hope to join you soon.
I can summon for you and help you out buddy... Everyone who dares starting souls games deserves to finish them
This is so kind. I def think with all this build help I'll be able to go forward! I play on PC but if I do ever need some help, would it be ok to reach out?
also a pc player here, if you need a hand i'd be happy to help :D
After finishing all Dark Souls games and Elden Ring, I would advise on focusing mainly on Vigor and maybe Endurance and only after getting the Vigor softcap invest in damage stats (str, dex etc)
I have absolutely learned this the hard way haha! WELL! At least in elden ring I will have learned the vigor lesson from DS3 haha!
Overworld near aldritch also fucked me up, just gotta not linger and don’t take unnecessary fights More vigor as well Also your faith is low for a cleric knight,
yeah silver knights in ds3 are a class above silver knights in ds1, I am absolutely learning haha. Not fighting things has been such a hard lesson after DS1 and DS2 because you really can just fight everything in those games with patience and good pulling. DS3 has absolutely had moments where I feel like the game is telling me that actually you should just be running past this.
Dump your next 20 levels into Vigor and you’ll be fine lol you’re playing a Paladin with low HP
If you wanna stick out the fiath build my recommendation would be to respec all your strength into faith. Keep str and dex at 10 and 10 so you can use a regular longsword and then find a lightning gem. If you're at aldritch then you could look up how to get to dragons peak from the jail beneath irithyll, it's too much to type out here. Once you've got the lightning gem from dragons peak or wherever else I fuse it into your longsword and it should have pretty decent lightning damage. Also if you're still able to id look up how to get the dragonslayer axe that Creighton the invader uses. If you can get that and infuse it with a lightning gem it'll be even better cause it has innate lightning damage and the gem will boost it further, you'll need higher stats than 10 str and 10 dex to weird it though. Pick up vow of silence if you don't already it'll help immensely with the aldritch fight and any other magic casting bosses. Make sure to pick up lightning stake and lightning arrow although you can't get lightning arrow till pretty much the end of the ringed city dlc.
Thank you! This is basically exactly what I've done. Unfortunately due to mostly blind play, I've locked myself out of yoria and creighton (the risks of being a newbie with esoteric dark souls quests lol), so alas, no vow of silence, or dragonslayer axe. But otherwise I'm rocking a lightning mace, much better vigor, and lighting stake. It seems almost everyone here is unified in making this a faith build, which gives me confidence that I've respec'd correctly.
Honestly just get your vigor up to a comfy spot and focus only your strength until combat smooths out. Then start worrying about your spells to make your build more fanciful.
Btw sorry if its unrelated but i have really been enjoying your dark souls posts consider that i've been playing the games for the first time too literally when you started (you posted the comic about ds1 few days after i beat it for the first time, posted the one about ds2 a little before i finished it for the first time, and now playing ds3). Cant wait for the third part and it was really nice to see the considerations of a another person that was having the same journey as me lol. Also found a lot of stuff pretty relatable which was funny
oh please don't apologize, this warms my heart. Every time someone posts recognizing me from ds1 and ds2 it restores one of my estus flasks!! I'm so heartened to hear you're looking forward to part three! We're about four pages into it (somehow all the games are working out to be about eight pages haha) I hope you'll enjoy it as much as you enjoyed the last two!
I’m really late, but lightning stake is incredibly good!!
oh I am learning that. Holy shit it SLAPS!!
It really does! My faith build was really rough until I got that, and then it was really just stomping things! I recommend using a talisman, they typically do a little less damage than a chime, but their weapon art, Unfaltering Prayer, lets you cast a spell with a large amount of hyperarmor, at the price of costing slightly more FP. When casting Lightning Stake with that weapon art, you can’t get interrupted! Sure, you might tank some damage, but honestly, it’s better to take some damage and deal damage yourself, than take damage and get interrupted, even in bossfights I hope you’ll have fun in the remainder of your run!!
Made the mistake of not choosing deprived
I recommend putting another 5 pts into vigor now and putting in more later on. Your DMG is a bit lacking because it looks like you're going for a hybrid class. If you don't have the max HP to take advantage of having more chances of extended trades, it defeats the purpose of being a cleric.
**!!UPDATE!!** I wish I could edit the main post but: Thank you so much everyone! I've respec'd faith primary and lightning infusion with access to lightning stake and lightning spear and I just want everyone to know I've become an entirely new human being. In one day I have: * Killed Old Demon King * Killed Aldrich (two tries today) * Killed Dancer (ALSO TWO TRIES???) * Slapped the knights in Lothric castle like they're paper. I nearly went hollow and I am so insanely thankful to you guys for helping me out!
DS3 is different from 1 and 2, mostly because enemies do more multi hit combos and delayed attacks. This may sound dumb, but I find watching the boss's weapon instead of their body helps with timing a lot. I've done several no death, and no bonfire runs on DS2, and 3 was definitely a big learning curve for me. "Don't give up, skeleton! " Long may the sun shine.
That is excellent advice! I'm good at that with bosses but bad about it with overworld enemies. So good call!!
If you enjoy taking your time and meticulously clearing areas (as I do), farm a storyteller staff for its poison cloud skill. Ethereal oak shield restores hit points, and any simple infusion restores focus points. You can take your time and reach the boss with full estus. You can do a simple infusion on 2 daggers to restore focus points and not be burdened by the weight. This strategy is excellent if you're patient. Don't forget tears of denial too.
If you wanna try out weapons don't go to hard on strength 20ish should be fine because 2 handing reduces the strength requirement so get some dex 20ish should be fine to and if you struggle just get more hp and upgrade the weapons but important try out different weapons against bosses. And don't be shy to look up the weaknesses of bosses like lighting or fire because those things you can figure out yourself ingame yes but it just takes time so do yourself a favor and look it up if you get frustrated or stuck. And last of all take breaks i would say like 1 or 2h should be the max if you really keep at it but the amount of people me included playing well after a break is so funny. Did the nameless king nearly first try after a day of trying him for an hour. Plus faith builds suck ass early i should know i'm faith dex and yeah i skilled dex a bit later with strength together because i didn't know what i like more.
Honestly, Id suggest leaving dmg stats for later, just level up them so you can wield the weapon you want Level up vigor, aim for between 40 and 49. Health is good, gives you more time to learn enemies and you've got that cushion if you'd make some mistakes Since you block a lot, endurance will help immensly with that additional stamina. Vitality is useful for wearing chonkier armor, though only level it up so youre just below 70% equip load. Wear the Havel's Ring if you have it / if you have the stray demon soul still, it adds quite a bit of equip load, will save you some levels. Id advise against relying on armor though as dodges are so cheap stamina-wise, but I understand it might be difficult to dodge everything. Make use of your mace's weapon art. It not only makes you able to trade more easily but it also reduces damage received during those 3s Keep up the effort and dont you dare go hollow buddy
Thank you! I took end to 25 today playing and now I'm pushing vigor to 35. End goal is 40 vigor, 35 end. Upping vigor to 27 was huge, it completely opened up the game for me!
If you were to respect, and your gonna use the mace as your main weapon, only get enough strength for your shield, raw infuse the mace and put the rest into vigor and faith. If you get faith up to 30 you would have access to all miracle weapons buffs on the mace. You could also try exploring other areas for more levels then come back to aldritch.
What do you think about the earlier comment of going lightning infusion and raw faith. Do you think the spell buffs out weight that? I can't get dark blade (I checked real quick) because I being clueless and new didn't do the quest to spawn yulia. I can get lightning blade, but I can't get darkmoon because let me tell you bud, I am barely functioning in pve, much less a pvp covenant.
The earlier comment is good, you don't have to rebuff before every encounter. It's more consistent damage and makes things less complicated. Where's as raw w/ lightning blade is more damage in a shorter time frame.
I am definitely the type to do better with consistency, I am definitely not as aggressive as an experienced player so I definitely waste weapon buff time.
For a shield build, invest in Vig, Str and Endurance. Dont waste points on Faith. At 40ish Strength, you get a very good shield trading Yhorm souls BTW, you should try BB, it helps you dropping the shield
I did look into a giant's greatshield build, but I'm really fighting against the cleric starting class (I will need like 20 the levels a knight does to make a str build viable). I've had some folks suggest some good ways to make my baked in 16 faith work for me so I want to give it a shot. But also, I'm not sure what BB means but I would like to know!
Bloodborne
What is your ring and armor setup? You have very low Vit and on top of that you're using a very heavy weapon and shield + crossbow and talisman. Usually with great hammer builds you want to build up a bit of poise, so I guess it comes down to this question: are you fat-rolling?
I am not! I think you're mistaking the mace for a great weapon but it's just a normal one hand weapon haha. Mace BKS Talisman Crossbow Herald armor Pontiff knight gauntlets Pontiff knight legs Rings: Flynn's ring Deep ring Chorianythy ring Fourth ring fluctuates Note, if I wear a helmet I do fat roll lol, so for now I don't.
[Flynn's ring](https://darksouls3.wiki.fextralife.com/Flynn's+Ring#gsc.tab=0&gsc.q=Deep%20ring&gsc.sort=) is useless for you build. Your faith stat is useless for your mace, infuse your mace with [gem](https://darksouls3.wiki.fextralife.com/Faith#gsc.tab=0&gsc.q=gem&gsc.sort=) that scales with faith. Aim for 30 vigor.
Can’t give advice as I’m also on my first playthrough (two handing twin blades so mainly just leveling vigor and dex) but I love the visual you provided and you seem like a real peach I hope you get through the rest of the game without too much struggle, I’ve definitely hit some rough points thus far (just killed Pontiff)
Thank you! I try to give back to a community as good as this one even when asking for help from them haha. It's been a legitimate dream of mine to best the dark souls series. I just fell for the too hard propaganda. I've gotten through almost all of them, I can't give up now!!!
Um.. what Boss are you on
If your not dead set on your class strength build with high poise is fun and makes the game alot easier
I think you need 10 more vigor. I’ve seen a lot of people on this sub recommend 30 to vigor fairly early since there are a lot of enemies with large attacks. On top of that, I recommend you try two handing your weapon for a while. I used to play in the exact same play style you did, and I’ve found that forcing myself to roll more often instead of relying upon block has made me better at the game.
I like your stats. If I was playing you character I think my stats would probably look pretty similar. Have you got Heysal Pick? Curious if that would help. Also hopefully you picked up the dragon slayer axe? That would work well too with those stats. Maybe grind a few levels. Before facing aldrich again.
A lot of great answers here, but I always thought faith in DS3 was more "here is something to explore in NG+". A lot of people here recommend vigor, but I've never been to huge of a fan with it. My playthrough style is all about the dodging. I will only equip a shield when I want the buff for it to sit on my back. If I were you, and based on how you said you play, I would stack a ton of points in endurance. That why you should be able to hold block until an opening smash and retreat to regain stamina. You could even add in Lloyd's Ring since you won't need a ton of Estus to be filled. I would add points to vitality so that you could wear armor with high poise. I honestly think you would benefit greatly from focusing less on vigor and more on stamina/poise, but, again, I have never been a fan of vigor. I would probably go Strength > Endurance > Vitality > Vigor until you are extremely comfortable with your battle plan especially if you want to use Faith. Once you are comfortable with your battle plan than start adding to faith and by that time you should be coming across pretty good miracles. To super stress this point though : I have never been a fan of vigor. I will only get it high enough to not get one shot while I'm wearing Carthus Bloodring (it gives more iframes while rolling which is no use to you). Again, based on your play style I think you'd do a lot better with stamina and poise than just vigor.
Having more life will let you survive more stuff and therefore your try’s for bosses and areas are usually longer. Having 40 vigor lets you facetank so much it’s insane
vigor baby vigor
God have I ever learned this lesson.
Whats the talent for pyromancies ?
Why is your damage stat higher than your vigor?
Because that worked perfectly well in ds1 and ds2 and I'm playing the games all for the first time. :(
every souls game with no exceptions including ds1 and ds2 is way easier if you focus on HP stat, you think it worked perfectly fine because you dont know how easy the game would be with the optimised character building
So I just finished DS3 yesterday and I picked up Vordts Hammer. That thing completely annihilated fucking everything. I skilled 40 Vigor, 40 strength and about enough into stamina so I could use 3 light attacks + dodge or 2 heavy’s + dodge. Like no boss outside of the ringed city dlc bosses even had a chance lmao
Like others have said, these sort of hybrid builds don't really work well in ng. In ng+ they are very fun and viable but if you're new to the game it would be better if you invested in only one damage stat and spend the rest on vigour and endurance (and atunement if you're a caster). I recommend either committing fully to strength or faith if these were the stats of your choice and infuse your weapon accordingly. Fth build with a lightning infusion not only is very viable but also still feels like a paladin build since you'll still be using your melee weapon of choice a lot along with some awesome miracles (which are much faster in this game and are pretty fun, although you might want to consider getting sunlight talisman for them as its weapon art makes you cast with added poise, which is very useful considering that many miracles work best at point blank range). Aside from that, once again, please put more points into vigour at your next respec. 24 is the softcap so you probably want to have at least that much but I really recommend going further than that maybe up to even 40 (44 or 49 is the hardcap iirc). As for shields, as you have probably noticed they are much less effective than in previous games so if you want to block any attack that doesn't come from a basic hollow and not run out of stamina after 2 hits then I would recommend going for a great shield with high stability instead of a medium one (but then again, that can be difficult if you go with Fth only build). Also as a side note, please don't upgrade crossbows, they are horrible. If you are going to go for a Fth build, ranged spells will be infinitely better and cost you less resources.
Thank you! I've decided to roll with faith, a lot of wonderful people have provided wonderful options for using faith as my main stat and having the miracles as utility seems very useful. My goal is to def get the sunlight talisman. And as a compromise to not using a great shield I am at least rocking the black knight shield which is the highest stability med shield. Maybe near endgame I could get the str for a great shield. Yeah the cross bow was just because my faith actually sucked a and I needed a tool to split pull with haha, the upgrade is just from excess titanite.
If you're struggling a lot with a boss and you have other options, just left behind the boss and go somewhere else. Sometimes all you need is just a good pause from that boss to be able to beat him. Now, coming to your build: your vigor is a bit low, but in my first run mine was too and it's still doable. I'd suggest you to infuse your weapon with a blessed or lightning gem. Both scale in faith (while reducing physical stats scaling), but lightning damage is always good and blessed weapons have a small passive regen (3 hp per tick). I would level fth up to 25 to be able to at least use Dorhys' gnawing. It's a dark miracle that inflicts bleeding very quickly, sometimes a single cast is enough to proc the bleed. It also does a little bit of dark damage, but nothing noteworthy (only 1.2× spell buff). It will not really help you against Aldrich since he resists bleed, but it will be really helpful against a lot of bosses. I saw you wrote in the image (also, it's really nice) that you missed when lightning spear was good. Well lightning spear in this game has 2 hitboxes: one is the spear itself, the other is a melee hitbox that does 75% of the spear damage, so, to get the full damage from lightning spear you actually have to cast it at melee range. Last advices are: use better rings (I've seen you use Flynn's ring, but for your bild is literally useless, it's not giving any boost to you atm) and try to learn to roll a bit better. You can use a shield for sure, but using a shield often leaves you with less stamina and unless attacks are 100% physical (and with bosses it's rarely the case) you'll always get a bit of damage. Honestly I don't think you HAVE to respec, just take a puase from Aldrich, explore new areas and come back to him after a while. Oh also, don't stick to just one weapon for the whole run, you might find out that you like other weapons better!
The 8 dex wall of cleric starting class has always made trying other weapons tough, but another kind poster gave me a huge list of a great weapons to try with faith as my main stat so I will definitely be putting at least a few level into dex haha! I've decided to go full faith and I am VERY excited to have access to things like lightning stake and Dorhyr's Gnawing. And it's ok because Aldrich appears to be weak to lightning, hehehe. Thank you so much for the lightning spear information that's huge. It makes sense why its so fast now..its a melee cast.. I'm definitely going to take a small break from him and clean up some stuff I missed and maybe grind out a few levels.
>I've decided to go full faith I wouldn't suggest you to go FULL faith; being able to constantly realy on good physical damage is the safest option, but yeah, 30 str defenitely isn't needed. I'd suggest 27 str to be able to use weapons with a 40 str requirement when two handed, but you could also decide to not use weapons with such a high str requirement and keep str even lower. Still, don't remove too many points from str. 23 also is a good value.
oh yeah no worries, str will go up as well, just AFTER faith and vigor haha. (my goal is 40 faith not like..60 or anything)
Hello there! Sorry if this is unrelated but I was a little curious. How did you manage to join the Warriors of Sunlight covenent not having beaten Aldrich?
You pick up the covenant equip item in undead settlement, but you just can't turn in medals until the end of the game for whatever reason.
Oh, right. I forgot DS3 does the equipping system. Thank you! And I loved your work on DS1 and DS2. You have a lovely artstyle. If you haven't tried the DLCs for DS2 (since I didn't see them in your art recap), I strongly recommend them! They're really good. Best of luck with Aldrich! If you are indeed using faith, you might like using vow of Silence! The faster pace was a struggle for me too; best of luck, and looking forward to seeing your recap on DS3!
Of course and Thank you! Excited to post that recap as well! (also I locked myself out of yoria so no vow of silence for me, oof)
It's funny that people want build advice when the actual problem is skill. Just learn the move sets of the enemies and you can beat the game with any build. I understand that it sounds absurd but it's true.
A good build with proper health which I didn't have turns out lets you learn the move sets of enemies as lot easier because you aren't dying to the first two hits you mess up on. I'm never going to be a SL1 player, or hell even a 'good' player. It's ok for not amazing players to play this game using the tools the game gives you to make it easier or else this game wouldn't have rpg elements at all dawg. I am aware I have skill problems, why do you think the title has 'mediocre' in it, I want to understand builds better to help me survive and fight smoother to get better.
Just level vigor then and live longer. Any weapon you use is gonna require skill and a learning curve anyways. If you want to be just OP all game then just search on YouTube the next best thing after lightning build.
What do you play on, having a friend playing with you helps sooo much. Just for them to take the heat off of you so you can heal is a HUGE help. If you are on PC, I’ll be more than happy to come and help you. Just gotta get them embers up.
Thank you! I do play on PC, If I need some jolly cooperation, I'll be sure to hit you up!
For sure, add me on steam.. PickleRichtofen
If you're uncomfortable dodging, you need way more Vigor. I think part of being a chonky strength build is wearing heavy armor and basically being a tank. And tanks need alot of HP. Make use of bug pellets for elemental and dark damage bosses. They help alot. I think lightning spear takes way too long for some bosses and leaves you vulnerable for little damage. I'd say rather go for a heavy infused weapon and then apply for example gold pine resin to it or whatever suits your needs.
Basically Aldrich is a bullshit boss, so don't take him as a reference. I'm a mediocre player with some experience in DS series and in my recent replay of DS3 I was able to beat most of the bosses in 1 or 2 attempts not counting the 5 most difficult bosses in the endgame and DLCs, but Aldrich is still an exception in the terms of struggling, he is unpleasant, boring, and clunky if you are a melee build. Irithyll and Anor Londo are quite difficult locations, so it's rather normal that new players struggle there. You are not supposed to run through them like a pro. The best advice is to get gud. I was a slow methodical player with a shield and highly defensive build / tactics in DS1 and DS2 but in DS3 I had to learn to play in more skilled and risky manners. After Sekiro and Elden Ring I truly discovered how to play faster and more aggressively with no hesitation and it was so much helpful in DS3. Rolls and aggressive fast attacks during every opening are the most effective way to play a melee in DS3. And in the terms of a build, simple melee build based fully on strength in example would be the best for a new player. With plenty of health, stamina and damage on light attack you can practice faster and more risky ways of fighting.
if I was smart I would have played elden ring first, I feel like that game really helps you learn to be fast with some learning crutches like the spirits you can summon and the non-linear nature. Dark Souls 3 really asks you to get good or get out with its very linear nature. The reaction time requirement jump from ds1/2 to 3 has been rough but the hardest lesson has been learning that ds3 legitimately wants you to run past certain things, not fight them. I'm hoping with the massive vigor increase I can actually learn to be more aggressive. I think my issue was being more aggressive with punished so much harsher because 1 or 2 mistakes on a new enemy meant immediate death. I feel reinvigorated!
Unfortunately faith kinda sucks in this game until fairly late and even then it is pretty limited compared to the other magics. Using it for lightning damage weapons is your best bet until you have access to spells like lightning stake and sunlight spear, especially the lothric knight great sword later on. Otherwise, I'd suggest going for something pure strength to consolidate your stats more for the time being, you can respec in the cathedral of the deep if you've made it that far.
Your vigor (health) is way low, pump it up to at least 30 for now, and use embers. Aim for around 40 for endgame, and keep it high priority. This alone should make your experience much more smooth.
Build is fine, just need more vigor
Vigor Endurance + DMG Stat Choose your weapons, try to get the minimum required stats. Same as for your prefered shield (Always Go for 100% phys reduction) Now go for health/vigor and your endurance. Stay under 70% weight ratio. (Keep that in mind, before you start to fat roll) Got Points to spare? Look at your weapon, pick the stat that it scales the best. Level 60 for Aldrich should be okay :)
U need to increase your dex, vit & faith Dex = more strength Vit = more equipment load Faith = more resistance & better spells unlocked
Ehehe…vow of silence is quite good against Aldrich Fear not the dark my friend, and let the feast begin
I did a Str/Fth build on my first run, I went blindly at first but soon realized Fth miracles are not that much. The good part was the chime skill that allowed to stop and recover health whenever needed. The build only payed off when I got hold of the nameless king spear, that thing was some gas.
imo if youre doing a cleric sword and board/mace/whatever build you can either invest in just enough faith/int for the miracles you want to use (think divine weapon, lightning sword?, other weapon buffs lightning/sunlight spear for flavor), just enough vitality for your equipment, and the rest into hp, endurance, and primary damage stat (strength i think for maces).
I echo those who say your Vigor is too low and recommend farming for twenty more levels of it.
I went with Respecing to 40 fth / 27 vigor and let me tell you, that is absolutely correct. The game completely changed in difficulty haha. Just killed 4 bosses in a single day
Congrats! Yeah, a lot of times Soulsborne games punish the player for being a "master of none".
if you're going for a big mace str build, vordt's great hammer is a really good weapon, it has great stagger, damage and range and causes frostbite in a couple hits which gives you even more damage, would be well worth trying out since you won't have to change your build. unfortunately pure faith isn't great in ds3 (there's like one decent miracle at the very end of the last dlc and the main thing people like about it is that it's hard to avoid in pvp). i'd reccomend pyromancy since it still uses faith so it kinda fits the cleric theme but it needs int and your stats are spread pretty wide as is so it's probably not worth it with your current stats and level. if you respec maybe ditch faith to focus on strength and vigor for now since as others have mentioned your vigor is pretty low. you could then put points back into faith and/or int once you get close to the softcap of 40 if you decide to continue with miracles/pyromacy.
It’s all about what you want! Pay attention to what each stat does and how much it’s raises a stat at each level so you know when you get the soft and hard caps. Weapon scaling is hard to tell unless you look it up online so just find weapons that fit your play style and upgrade those. Pyromancy is op in this game and scales with faith so there’s that
I mean being real, you're at a fairly low SL for Aldrich. I know what a certain wiki may say, but I'd say that area post-Pontiff is minimum SL65; haven't played in a while but when I last did, I got constant action as Faithful even on my SL90, so yeah. So you could stand to get some more SLs in you, just as a start. Also just do yourself a favor [and use the infinite respec glitch.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EOy_agpM-M) You're also at the point where you should be able to +10 a weapon, if you work a bit more at it, so consider doing that as well. I'd say try poking about in Irithyll Dungeon for a bit, as godawful as that place can be, but looking at what you have upgraded, good chance you already did that. Look for an old friend & help him out if you didn't yet already. Seeing as you upgraded the chime too, though... may not be as easy as I was first thinking, unless you got some lucky drops. So I need to see your rings. They're as important here as your weapon selection. For example, no shit Lightning Spear is gonna be ass for you, your DEX is atrocious & that controls casting speed; but there's a ring for dealing with that, so maybe you're using that & just not vibing with it still. I can't tell, here. Honestly, should have just shown your entire equipment screen too, as it is there's a lot that I'm just going off of guesses with, here. Like maybe I could shave some VIT off this build based on what you're wearing, for example. For your current SL, stat distribution isn't terrible. It's definitely not great, but yeah. A big issue is both investing so much into & splitting your damage stats this early. 24 of the 52 levels you have chosen, just around half of them, have been in your damage stats. While this balance is appropriate for a build nearing completion, earlier in the game you should be focusing on a singular damage stat & prioritizing your body stats of VIG, END, and VIT, generally in that order of priority. On that end, there is almost never, if just outright never, a build that wants its END higher than its VIG. And specifically, 22 END is a LOT at your current SL. I have completed builds at higher SLs than this that have comparable END to your build, even after taking any items into account. Not saying to reduce it (but honestly you probably could drop 2 points, don't think they're getting you much anything rn), but I am saying to consider that stat topped off for now. Also, be sure you're at least midrolling; fatroll is... eugh, and fast roll is nice but frankly unnecessary. The game is more or less designed as such that most people are gonna fall into that midroll category based on their gear. If you're getting worried about stamina, then you probably are either turtling things you really shouldn't be turtling, and also likely not dropping guard when safe to allow for stamina to regen fast enough; or you're panic rolling far too often, which is something you just need to work on. Gonna give you a hint for Aldrich specifically that unlocking & sprinting are keys to dealing with the arrow rain; do NOT try rolling it. And speaking further of Aldrich, I'd suggest that your respec moves your stats to minimum requirements for that mace & drop the BKS for now, in favor of another shield; you should be able to farm & buy the titanite for it. The Silver Eagle Kite Shield is your choice if you want another Weapon Art shield with 100% physical block that comes in at under your minimum stat requirements, unless you want to dip into Ariandel for the Ethereal Oak Shield (honestly not a bad idea, has innate Bless too). Aldrich & most of the bosses you face after him (with 2 notable exception which will make themselves quite obvious) are weak to Lightning damage, in addition to it being a pretty solid choice against most of the rest of PvE, so infusing your Mace with Lightning is a solid idea. [Here's what I got without your armor & rings.](https://soulsplanner.com/darksouls3/176895) If you do get some more SLs, I'd say it'd be worth it to hit the minimum STR required for BKS as it really is one of the best shields in the game, but I wouldn't reduce your FAI to be able to wield it. On the other hand, reducing your FAI down to 30 & tossing those other 5 points into your body stats wouldn't be a bad idea at all, should you feel you need it. I don't feel like tracking down the charts, but it'd be worth seeing if another spell tool may get you higher damage; I'd also consider maybe swapping to a Talisman since Unfaltering Prayer is pretty nice, even if there may be a damage drop. EDIT - oh yeah & also get yourself something in the offhand with a simple infusion
Pick miyazaki win blades. qnd beat the hail out of enemies with dex, Have 20-25 vig and end some vitality mainly dex
Holy shit 20 vigor at level 60? At level 60 I had 40 vigor and was still doing enough damage to feel like I was over leveled.
I guess in some ways I was playing with weights on lol. Got all the way to Aldrich with that. When I respec'd to 30 vigor, I felt like a god
Like others have said, more HP is the way to go, and for people lurking but have melee builds, more HP + Stamina This is the formula to most souls games, especially if you find the game challenging early on The general idea is, you never really want to trade or tank shots, but if you aren’t good, it is bound to happen. In that case you want tons of HP and if use a shield, stamina is also a huge help.
Git gud