This happened to a bunch of folks yesterday. It hasn’t happened to me more than once at least. (I never shut my PC off, btw).
I’ll take this “ancient” post of a day ago to talk about faith builds. I started as a Confessor class because I wanted to have melee, a lot of spell options, healing, and a shield as a crutch. Looking at the pyromancer, dragon, and lightning incantations before launch, I wanted the traditional battle wizard, just the incantation side of things. You know, “for Sigmar.” I had a lot of envy for INT builds for awhile there, but it has finally gone away and in a big way.
Now, I’m still “early” in the game as I am definitely taking the exploration route here, but I am really starting to LOVE this build. I have holy/faith scaling on my weapons, some really useful and aesthetically awesome weapon arts, and a widening tool chest of equally useful, varied, and super flashy (awesome) incantations. I’m so glad I stuck this out. It was pretty ho hum at first and the temptation to lean heavy into the basic warrior build, but with a sad heal is a very real path to be avoided.
On the point of adding holy damage, yes, early on the only way to do it is the 2 weapon arts that are very close to the start of the game. The arts themselves are neat, but the let you scale to “sacred” which has lowers STR and DEX scaling traded for FAI scaling. Early this is sort of a moot point though as none of the player stats are all that boosted yet. Later on some weapons that naturally scale to FAI can be found which lets you keep their natural weapon arts. By then faith should be pretty high so the righteous melee is working as are those fancy incantations that were picked up along the way.
I’m really liking my character. She is like a mixture of a Warhammer war priest, a Stormcast Eternal, and the Grim Reaper.
@John_Reynolds How is your faith build going? If that is what you are doing, I know we started on the same path.
I had the same terrifying message when I started to play last night. I chose the most recent option which was to upload my local save and no progress seemed lost after I loaded from that.
Fozzle
1992
I LOVE my faith build as well. Early on in the Weeping Peninsula you can find an incredible faith scaling weapon that also has bleed on it. This thing is just ridiculously fun and I am still using it at 70. The only thing about the build I am going for (Holy lightning Paladin type) is it is stat hungry. Need some vit,end,mind,faith,str… and a smidge of Dex. Once you have needs met though, I’m planning on pumping faith solely
Kolbex
1993
Hmm, mind naming it for me? With spoiler tags, obviously.
Kolbex
1995
Thank you, I’ll check it out.
Dejin
1996
I concur, South Island is easier than pushing North too far. The north just past the first gate (i.e., the Stormgate/Stormhill area) isn’t too bad. But much past that (location clarification: pushing across the big lake), or compared to following the Stormgate/Stormhill road East (location clarification: pushing toward the badlands and the nasty swamp), going South is easier.
Also if you have trouble with the bridge to the South Island there’s actually one of those jumping jets you can use to jump from the mainland over to the South Island it does require use of some jumping skills though..
JeffL
1998
Day 2 (only able to play a couple of hours at a time right now) of the non-DS playing, more into Skyrim and RDR2 type games guy. Astrologer, avoiding guides etc. to see what it is like to figure it all our myself first try. I saw the guide on how to find the Meteorite Staff and thought OK I’ll break my no guide rule but my map is so non-detailed, just some marks of places I’ve been, I can’t tell how to get to the places you need to (e.g Dragon Burnt Ruins) to get there.
So just wandering around. I found I can sneak up behind military guys who only have swords and take them out pretty easily. Just using my short sword. I found a Great Sword but I doubt I’m strong enough to use that. Went into some cave with wolves, got surrounded by them and my frantic button pushing wasn’t enough to avoid dying. Tried again, more carefully, and managed to get through all the wolves, which allowed me to get to my first “mist” since the tutorial area. Bad idea. Boss killed me with ease. OK, not ready for a boss yet.
Went a different direction and found a bunch of soldiers walking around and snuck up behind a lot of them and took them out with my short sword. Then found a camp of them. OK, I’m pretty good at clearing camps of bad guys in open world games. Found a magic whatever place (where you can rest and revive) and so had a place close by in case I died. Took my time, snuck up behind about 5 of them, took them out, quickly hiding again. Took out two of their guard dogs/wolves with magic pebbles. The others I’m using my short sword with sneak attacks from behind. But when I try that with the bigger guys with the shields and big weapons etc., not so good. Managed to run away (there’s not a sprint key, is there?) from a group chasing me. Let them go back and tried to sneak back in, but my spell barely touches the big guys. Couldn’t run away, two more joined him, I’m dead.
Lunch break over, back to work. Not going to give up on the camp with the soldiers (already opened the chest there, that’s where I got the great sword,) Just have to find a way to take them out one at a time and figure out how to take out the big soldier who seems pretty immune to spells. At this point, and enjoyable and interesting challenge. I clearly need some more power though.
Hold the dodge button to run.
For big knight guys, if you’re fighting them 1 on 1 try to bait their swings then backstab them.
Definitely try to clear those bosses in the mini dungeons, you’ll get items/enhancements that can really help. That wolf cave you mentioned is one of the lowest level ones I’ve found and I think it’s meant to be your first one. Give it another try (or 10). If you get good at taking out the big knights you can handle that boss!
Does anyone else sing to the tune of Personal Jesus “Reach Out and Touch Grace” each and every fucking time they find a new bonfire?
Petey
2002
It took me awhile to clear all those guys away. The Faith build helps…the fireball spell takes out the ones with shields. I use a +2 bow for all others. I’m finding bow and spells very fun. Need to work on my sword and shield melee skills, which are non existent, but once I have those and some good dual wield katanas…good to go anywhere!
100%! Or perhaps maybe just 90% of the time. I’m sure the translator must be a fan.
Fozzle
2006
If you farm the guys with the smaller bronze shield at the beginning you can get one quick and it blocks 100% physical damage. very handy and its not very heavy!
Some men just want to watch the world burn… mwahahaha!!
@Kolbex I concur. That is why my character is a mix of Stormcast Eternal and the Grim Reaper. I have quite a collection of scythes now. Before trekking out for Fozzle’s suggestion, basic ol’ physical scythes were/are my go to. They uses basic stones (so as not to compete for resources) to upgrade and before Faith is super high, the basic ones are better (IMO). There are 2 standard scythes and they are both fairly easy to get early on. I prefer the one that is the easiest to get as it is essentially a great sword, but is scythe (great reach and has bleed). I like procs in games anyway, and bleed is an amazing proc in Elden Ring. I fell in love with it early on when I found a spiked club and was shocked to see big bursts of damage. The special Faith scythes have all that plus Faith scaling! Which weapon(s) have you gravitated towards Fozzle?
I agree about stat hungry. It is so hard to choose, but it got better once I determined to leave STR and DEX at levels to just equip gear. I got vigor up, enough endurance to not fat roll, enough arcane for the dragon incantations, the rest is about mostly faith for damage and some magic for FP.
I especially love how cool the incantations are visually or just in general. I super dig the confessor, but admit it’s a boring “meh” out of the gate.
You monster. Now I will! I mean, I love DM anyway, plus I AM playing a Faith build Confessor with a heavy lean towards incantations so…
