help for pyro/faith sunbro

I've planning to do my next character like this, what do you think of it ?
I'll be a PvE sunbro using rapier or spear (poke, shield up and backstab) and using pyromancy/miracle.
I don't plan to do any PvP.

Right Hand : divine/occult rapier/estoc + pyromancy flame
Backup : fire rapier/lightning spear
Left Hand : Bloodshield + talisman
Armor : Channeler / Ornstein / Paladin, dusk crown for boss fight
Rings : Ring of the Sun's Firstborn, Bellowing Dragoncrest Ring, Hornet Ring
spells : pyro + lightning spears + heal + ...

VIT : 35 or 29 (the rest)
ATT : 23 (more spells)
END : 40 (stay under 50% burden)
STR : 12 or 16
DEX : 12 or 14
RES : 12
INT : 19 (can cast most of spells with oolacile catalyst)
FAI : 50 (Sunlight spear miracle)

Any advices ? I don't realy know how much health I must have. I've played through most of NG with 20 VIT on another character.

in my opinion you might as well not lelel up int at all and put all those points in vitality. i dont know how practical it will be to switch between glove/talisman/catalyst mid battle so you can use their respective spells, except if you want to use magic for buffing your weapon only outside of battle or use some supportive spells like light, fall control, etc when there is need to do so.

If you focus on miracles alone you will find that you will have a nice range of both offensive and defensive miracles available to you so you can only equip a bow and a talisman on your off-hand slots and no need to switch. If you want to turtle you might as well level up your str to use eagle shield.

dusk crown?... why?

plus if you plan on not doing any pvp, make your weapon divine, not occult, it will give you a bonus against invaders.

Robotech wrote:

dusk crown?... why?

Crown of Dusk boosts miracles by 20%. Tested and confirmed.

As stated above, the dusk crown boosts miracles and pyromancies.
It seems that i have really underestimate the amount of health needed for NG+.
INT is there for the useful spells, light, fall control etc... I had the advice to only put 15/16 on another board. It may be the best thing to do.

I also have in mind to do a jack-of-all-trade. That's why INT was so high, using tin darkmoon for the spells at the end.

Putting only 16 INT and leaving STR/DEX low for health could help ?

SKhalazza wrote:I don't plan to do any PvP.

really? so... you'll stand away when host is invaded?

but to stay on topic, build is just terrible. you've got everything and at the same time you've got nothing on everything. not to mention, sunlight spear is pure waste of points. also, i couldn't figure why you would need magic (i'm guessing shield|talisman in your left hand and spear|pyro in your right). if you planned on wasting points to get to some level, you could use more logic. the only advice is complete rethink

i could only see faith 50 viable with divine weapons or sunlight sword

and saying, i'll be poking behind shield while specifying bloodshield and no RoFaP just to get 20% more stamina? bloodshield is low stability shield which takes lot of stamina to block and is thus unusable for poking. you'll just die in 2-3 blocks while poking

p.s. sorry... i simply couldn't resist on starting joke;)

Back Lot Basher wrote:

Robotech wrote:

dusk crown?... why?

Crown of Dusk boosts miracles by 20%. Tested and confirmed.

you're kidding me! i thought it only boosts magic... i'll go check it out pronto!

somebody_else wrote:and saying, i'll be poking behind shield while specifying bloodshield and no RoFaP just to get 20% more stamina? bloodshield is low stability shield which takes lot of stamina to block and is thus unusable for poking. you'll just die in 2-3 blocks while poking

In fact, I switch my rings a lot. I don't want to be stuck with one ring even if it's very good.

So, concerning the shied, which 3 weight is the best ? I don't plan to use an heavier.

Get rid of INT. use the darkmoon catalyst to cast spells as it scales with faith. My sunbro build doesn't use pyromancy either- too many things to equip really.

Use a 4 weight for balder shield, has good stability after you've upgraded it for medium shield thats still light.

3 weight shields wont get you a lot i have to say

and get rid of INT, use the points in wherever you need, if you've got pyro and miracles (overkill already) you dont need a measily 19INT sorcery too.

With 6 slots: WoG, Gfireball, Gcombustion, Sunlight Blade, sun spear(2 slots)

ideal, if you want get rid of sunlight blade for another Wog/g lightning spear or some pyromancy, best magic setup for you i fee

and i agree with hali, no need for 2 magic types i feel, if you have faith you've already got a good arsenal without dipping into pyromancy

Lol! Great minds hey Serious? Sounds a bit like my toon.
Speaking of shields - I've been using the Effigy a lot recently - what an awesome little shield!

I tried to do a similar build to yours. It failed miserably. Trying to mix using int and fth while still using melee is nearly impossible. My advice to you would be to pick on being a pure caster, or being a fth/pyro/melee.


So for a pure caster I would focus on getting int and fth to 40ish, attunement to 28 or 34, and throw the rest into vit/end.

For a pure caster use light armor obviously, have a catalyst, talisman and possibly a pyro flame. Have a hollow soldiers shield and a bandits knife/small sword for backup. You can give up int or fth for more of any other stat.

For a melee/fth/pyro build you have a few options. You can basically choose three basic builds here.

A fth based melee character. 50 fth, base/min str and dex, 40-50 vit/end. Use normal weapons +15 with sunlight blade, and divine/occult weapons. Can also use elemental weapons.

A Fth/(dex or str) Character. Bring dex/str to 40, faith to 40 and then vit/end to 40.

A melee with fth/pyro as backup. Bring vit/end to 50, str or dex to 40, fth to 28, att to 19. Use melee as the main source of combat. Have Defensive faith spells and offensive pyro spells at your disposal.

Is it actually good? iv seen it has 95% for a little shield which aint bad.

Does it block pretty much all (except negligible) damage out? because it does actually look fairly cool, wonder if would be any good to use... hmm

here's my build I'm making atm which is using sun blade buff and casts miracle a lot (more damage than protection based though, uses RoFaP which might throw your plan off a bit):

http://darksouls.itsthatguy.com/?c=Q2xlcmljLDEyMCwzMCwxOSwzMCwxNCw0MCwxMSw4LDUw

ErrJon6661 wrote:For a melee/fth/pyro build you have a few options. You can basically choose three basic builds here.

A fth based melee character. 50 fth, base/min str and dex, 40-50 vit/end. Use normal weapons +15 with sunlight blade, and divine/occult weapons. Can also use elemental weapons.

This looks like what I want. I don't plan to use magic full time. I wanted some INT to cast some little spells that might be useful like light in the ToG. I use miracles and pyro for the mid range fights in PvE. It helps a lot in my opinion.

In fact, I didn't believe I need so much VIT. I have done the majority of my boss fights using pyro and I found it safer.

If you ever plan on pvp you'll want at least 40 vit I've found. there are some exceptional builds but they are extremely focused on maxing damage output.


Light in the ToG is a waste of stats. You can get the skull lantern early on, or the sunlight maggot before you tackle it. So I wouldn't recommend that ( i made the mistake of getting light and then getting a skull lantern off the first necromancer in catacombs).

SKhalazza wrote:

somebody_else wrote:and saying, i'll be poking behind shield while specifying bloodshield and no RoFaP just to get 20% more stamina? bloodshield is low stability shield which takes lot of stamina to block and is thus unusable for poking. you'll just die in 2-3 blocks while poking

In fact, I switch my rings a lot. I don't want to be stuck with one ring even if it's very good.

So, concerning the shied, which 3 weight is the best ? I don't plan to use an heavier.

not one with weight 3 is usable for poking behind shield. first decent shield for that is eagle which weighs 6.

Balder shield is good tooo!

iv been using it this playthrough, its got great stability when upgraded for a med. shield

Halicarnassis wrote:Get rid of INT. use the darkmoon catalyst to cast spells as it scales with faith. My sunbro build doesn't use pyromancy either- too many things to equip really.

using catalyst that scales with faith doesn't mean you can cast spells where you don't have enough int to cast it in the first place

Serious_Much wrote:Balder shield is good tooo!

iv been using it this playthrough, its got great stability when upgraded for a med. shield

it is unusable for turtling as it has only 20% magic defense. just my 2 cents

he says he's not doing PvP, so the amount of magic he'll come up against is negligible i think

I suppose thats my two pennies XD

Serious_Much wrote:he says he's not doing PvP, so the amount of magic he'll come up against is negligible i think

I suppose thats my two pennies XD

repeating my question i stated at first... how can you coop and not PvP? hosts will get invaded if he wants to PvP or not

yeah but even then, ganking a guy is different to one on one it's more you just **** on the guy to be fair, sorcerer or not..

Serious_Much wrote:yeah but even then, ganking a guy is different to one on one it's more you just **** on the guy to be fair, sorcerer or not..

with that statement... why even trying to help some guy if helper relies on help more than the guy that summoned him? that's just BAD MOJO!!!!

well, then again... i have my reasons why i only summon phantoms for boss fight after stage is 100% cleaned. otherwise, not only i end up on ever helping side, even more... they tend to screw with parry since they gank every enemy i try to parry just to provoke bug where you get hit trough shield no matter what.

and lately, i do not summon some builds even if they are THE only choices available. pure mage, spear, rapier or dagger are absolute nono for me.

Yeah, unfortunately i have a very mercenarian approach when i'm summoned, no morals, no honour just do what i have to in order to protect the host.

I admit might be a bad thing to do kinda, but i never get my hosts complaining when i clean out a level and backstab a fleeing invader for them.