Only helmets provide stat buffs. The halig tree armor sets all have helmets that buff faith.

Aim for fashion. There is an imp head that boost faith but it looks bad.

Nights Calvary Set with any black hood you can find, including Confessors hood.

I'm doing a similar build and just got the blackflame monk set. Might be worth checking out.

Just based on looks. Mausoleum knight set: The plate is dirty steel looking and the cape is dark with a white a sun design.

I just started the same one, for now I'm going with the knight's spear that you find when you leave the crypt. I think the armor depends more on the heaviest you can carry at any given time without preventing you from dodging with agility. Those that improve attributes often do not pay off. What weapon and enchantments do you carry?

The black flame monk armor looks great. You can go tree sentinel for a more paladinish look, without helmet it looks sick.

Whatever gives you at least 51 poise

Robes

Armor isn't really tied to builds in this game. For most pieces it really only matters that you have the Endurance to carry the weight. There are a few exceptions (the White Mask boosts Bleed builds, the Raptor's Black Feathers boosts jump attacks etc.) but for the most part armor is just for defense. There is the Haligtree Knight Helm which gives +1 Faith but that is an incosequential buff when you get it (very late).

Armor doesn't care about your stats aside from End effecting your weight limit, so anything you can find that works is good. You can buy the knight set in the Roundtable hold, it's pretty good.

You'll encounter a decent set of medium armor with good magic resistance in Raya Lucaria. It's a bit hidden so don't be shy to interrupt some of the enemies worshiping their dead lord-knight.

This set should make the remainder of the second area a bit easier.

You can also farm Godrick's knights for parts of their armor. That's one of the lighter medium sets that offer adequate protection.

Or you could farm the big knight in Stormveil castle for a heavy armor set (Banished Knight set)

You can farm the Godrick Knight Armor set at Gatedront Ruins. But rather spawning from its grace, I spawned at one further south. This way I could agro only the knight.

https://preview.redd.it/19iba0vm92ne1.jpeg?width=2252&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=05943ad25f2dfc3327e4d22e5542806922e92557

It's a fashion game bro

Thanks for the replies, I also just realized you can can’t upgrade armor lol.

This is a common and not very good question tbh.

The only thing that really matters with armor is can you equip it without fat rolling? Theres no stats tied to armor and outside of a few specific pieces they don't do anything special for your build so there is no 'best' armor for a dex build or a faith build or whatever.

Wear whatever you want that doesn't make you fat roll and has the best defences. Or just wear what looks cool.

Apparently Haligtree Knight set boosts faith.

Doesn’t seem like there is any faith boosting armor, use whatever looks good and doesn’t make you fatroll :)

Tree Sentinel's and Crucible Knight are both good in the base game.

For DLC, I quite like the Death Knight and the Oathkeeper Knight Set.

Ledas armor

Crucible knight or Crucible tree

Do you ask reddit when you go clothes shopping?

Loretta's set with the Veteran helmet.

Banished Knight chest (with the cape) and the Veteran legs, gloves and helmet.

There are some helms that adds faith points. Haligtree helms for example.

Ash of war scarab is a viable option if you like blasphemous blade spamming. Aside from that nothing stands out, so just aim for good defenses and 51/56 poise.

Crucible boosts their incants, but that's about the best I've found.

Goldmask mask boosts golden order incantations

I used Haligtree Helm for my Faith build. Armor is personally preference. Tree Sentinel Armor is a nice thematic choice, what I used.

If you want to just cast incantations, which are the Faith-based spells, then it's pretty simple: 40 - 60 Vigor, 25 - 38 Mind, and 80 Faith. You'll also want some amount of Endurance, but that's a matter of personal taste. Prophet is the best starting class for this. The strongest sacred seals (the things you use to cast incantations) are Finger Seal, the Godslayer's Seal, and eventually the Erdtree Seal when you get to 70+ Faith.

You can modify this somewhat, of course! Feel free to throw in some Intelligence or Arcane if you find spells that require those stats. Or you can invest a bit in Strength or Dex to try out some melee weapons.

There's also Strenght/Faith builds, which let you be good at melee and cast strong incantations. Vagabond is a good starting class, tho Prophet lets you start casting right away. There's a seal called the Clawmark Seal that you can get pretty early on that scales with Strength and Faith. This build also has a ton of options for melee weapons.

General advice:

• Most of your damage increases come from upgrading your weapons, not from your stats. This means you can focus on leveling up Vigor, Mind, and Endurance, and only get enough of the other stats to meet stat requirements.
• Vigor: Raises your HP. Aim for 40 - 60. Don't go over 60, you get almost no HP at that level.
• Mind: Raises your FP. Aim for 38, because 38 Mind = 221 FP and a fully-upgraded blue flask restores 220. Going a little over is ok.
• Endurance: I like 28 - 35. Some people are happy with <15, others get 45+. You need at least a little if you want to wear heavier armor.
• Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Faith, and Arcane: Pick one or two. Get them to 60 - 80. There's more nuance than that, but it's a good start.
• Soreseals and Scarseals are talismans that raise several stats. They look good, but they increase how much damage you take by 10% - 15%. They're not worth it, especially at higher levels.
• Sacred Seals and Glintstone Staffs, the spellcasting catalysts, come in 3 flavors:
  • Early-game: Better damage than other catalysts when your stats are low, don't hold up when your stats are high.
  • Normal: Better than early-game ones when your stats are in the 40 - 70 range, worse than end-game ones above that.
  • End-game: Get almost all of their power when your stats are at 70 - 80.
  • It's impossible to tell what type each one is just by looking at it. You have to look it up.
  • Some catalysts are hybrids, meaning they scale off 2 stats. Most of these are powerful when you've got 43 in both stats. Some of them don't scale well above that, others do.

IMO, your first run is exploring the world and finding out what you like about the game. Don't worry about being "optimal" or having a perfect build. Try to just have fun instead!

I hope this isn't too confusing. Feel free to ask more questions if you have any!

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start as a vagabond for better starting stat spread if you care about optimization. your first goals should be lightning spear and bloodflame blade, then 27 faith, godslayer seal and black flame before you start upgrading seals. upgrading the finger seal is a waste.

https://www.reddit.com/r/EldenRingBuilds/s/ujMXiDSvF5

This is what I use. It’s multipurpose but I use some fundamentalist spells so I need the int. Note: This is mostly holy damage which is suboptimal but it can use lots of different incantations and be set up in different ways.

2 hand a heavy str weapon with 54 str (80 when 2 handed) then pump faith and buff with lightning armament/FGMS/Golden vow. My vote is for the claymore. Find a fun AoW and go to town.

"before all the bosses get holy damage negation" Is this only in NG+?

While I am a strong proponent of str/faith and an enjoyer of the dex/faith, if you're just getting into it for the first time then I suggest just a full faith build the first time.

60-80 faith depending on budget (sometimes I settle for 70 for a 150 build).

60 vigor, as usual.

About 25 mind is comfortable, but this again depends on point budget.

Last is the decision on what weapons you use. 16 strength is enough to Flame-Art infuse yourself a number of weapons like Claymore and Knight's Greatsword, whereas 22 strength is needed for heftier specialty weapons like Envoy Longhorn and Blasphemous Blade (though one could argue that you can use 16 strength and just 2-hand). You can go ~16-20 dex instead if there's a particular weapon you like -- I ran a Flame Art Antspur for awhile, accompanied by other dexy weapons like Flame Art Uchi and Flame Art whips, but that was personal preference. You can also opt to pick neither and go for stuff like dual Coded Sword and Cipher Pata, or other low-requirement normal weapons.

For your casting seals, you tend to want to match your seal to what you cast most, so Giants' Seal when casting pyromancies and Sacred Gravel if you're sticking to lightning. If you have more than 70 faith, there's an argument for the Erdtree Seal instead, as it tends to be around equal to specialty seals at their own spells at high faith.

Now, there's a few ways to approach casting. You can either do the more 'hybrid' style where you switch your offhand to the seal of your choice whenever you want to cast, or else you try for a 'pure' caster with two of the same seals in each hand in order to stack their bonuses.

Generally useful casting talismans include Flock Canvas, Fire Scorpion, Lightning Scorpion, Godfrey Icon, Radagon Icon, and Old Lord's if you like buffs. However, all the normal solid talismans like Shard of Alex, Dragoncrest, Erdtree Favor, and even Green Turtle are just fine based on your goals and preferences. There's some nice cross-synergy between some like Fire Scorpion and Shard of Alex for Blasphemous Blade, or between Fire Scorpion and Godfrey Icon for big hitters like Giantsflame.

You generally stick Flame Art or Sacred on all your weapons as needed to skirt around resistances. Similar with casting: you tend to use fire and lightning most, but don't be afraid to use holy, physical, or even magic-types as necessary -- also, any Blackflame spell will ignore most defenses, and is a good pick against bosses resistant to all elements.

Dex/Faith duel wielding Halo Scythe and Winged Scythe was pretty fun.

I'm loving curved gs(flame arts) with all the snap casts(pocket sand,flame, and discus as my main 3)