6 Best Strength and Faith Build in Elden Ring

Magic and Power go very well together. 

Hear ye! If you are tired of glass canon sorcery builds that die before casting a spell. Or if you are fed up of dexterity builds that scratch the foes with skinny little swords. Then try the build with true power. 

The Strength and Faith-focused build uses heavy weapons and varieties of spells to take control of the battle. It’s the most effective way to play Elden Ring and experience everything the game offers.

This build does everything the other “weak” builds don’t. Adapt, and you’ll have,

1. Enough bulk to shake off attacks done by monsters. 
2. Enough power to stagger giants with one hit of your colossal sword. 
3. Ability to heal so you can get up and fight again and again. 
4. Ability to buff yourself and raise your power to extreme levels.
5. The power to cast the most destructive incantations known to the Tarnished kind. 

The Strength and Faith build is for the magical knights, the heroic paladins, the champions of the truest glorious order, the ones who refuse to back down from any fight. 

Stat Requirements 

Before heading to the build, we must plan our stat distribution. We’ll plan for four instances, i.e., levels 50, 100, 150, and 200. You will need to figure out the in-betweens according to your requirement. 

Attributes	LvL 50	LvL 100	LvL 150	LvL 200
Vigor	20	35	45	50
Mind	20	25	25	25
Endurance	15	20	25	30
Strength	20	30	50	70
Dexterity	Min Weapon Requirement	Min Weapon Requirement	Min Weapon Requirement	Min Weapon Requirement
Intelligence	Minimum	Minimum	Minimum	Minimum
Faith	20	35	50	70
Arcane	Minimum	Minimum	Minimum	Minimum

• Focus on Strength and Faith.
• Level up Vigor, Mind, and Endurance to comfortable levels.
• Only level up Dexterity, Intelligence, and Arcane to the bare minimum if your weapons require them for wielding. 

With all that in mind, we have gathered 6 of the best Strength and Faith builds in Elden Ring. Some are community favorites, while some are personal favorites.

Also, be careful about the soft caps of the stats.

The Paladin from Nightmares (PvE and PvP)

• Weapon: Blasphemous Blade – Taker’s Flame
• Shield: Fingerprint Stone Shield (Heavy Affinity) – No Skill/ Any Great Shield with No Skill
• Sacred Seal: Erdtree Seal
• Armor: Get Poise above 52 with midroll. 
• Talismans: Great Jar’s Arsenal, Fire Scorpion Charm, Flock’s Canvas Talisman/Shard of Alexander, and Greatshield Talisman.
  The Shard of Alexander can be picked optionally instead of Flock’s Canvas Talisman if you rely more on Taker’s Flame than incantations.
• Physick Mix: Flame-Shrouding Cracked Tear and Opaline Hardtear/Faith-Knot/Strength-Knot Crystal Tear
• Incantations: Temporary Body Buffs (Flame Grant me Strength/ Protection of The Erdtree/ Black Flame’s Protection/ Suitable Elemental Fortification), Lord’s Heal, Temporary Aura Buffs (Golden Vow)
• Summons: Use your favorite Summon
  Note: But, prefer not to use Mimic Tear as it may spam useless incantations and waste time if you don’t have any offensive incantations equipped. 
• Greatrune: Godrick’s Greatrune

Build Guide

This is a tanky build that also deals massive damage. Taker’s Flame is your primary source of damage, and it deals faith-scaling fire damage.

The damage is also buffed by Flame Grant me Strength, your Physick Mix, and Fire Scorpion Charm. 

We suggest you use the Shard of Alexander instead of Fire Scorpion Charm if you think you are taking too much damage, as Fire Scorpion Charm increases the amount of damage you take. 

Another better option is to stack Fire Scorpion Charm and Shard of Alexander, kicking off Flock’s Canvas Talisman and depend fully on the damage of Taker’s Flame. 

You can follow the Stat table above and keep your dexterity (DEX) to the minimum requirement of 15 for Blasphemous Blade. 

This build also uses the Fingerprint Shield (or any Greatshield) with No Skill Ash of War infused to heavy affinity.

With this shield and your defensive buffing incantations, you can outlast any foe you come across. You will take no damage whatsoever if the shield is up. 

Armor Style

To satisfy the Fashion needs for this build, we used the unaltered Night’s Cavalry Set. Looks straight out of nightmares.

The Executioner from Hell (PvE)

• Weapon: Executioner’s Greataxe (alternatively Greataxe or Rusted Anchor) with Ash of War Flame of the Redmanes and fire affinity
• Shield: Distinguished Greatshield – No Skill
• Sacred Seal: Erdtree Seal
• Armor: Get Poise above 52 with mid-roll. 
• Talismans: Flock’s Canvas Talisman, Great Jar’s Arsenal, Erdtree’s Favor+2, Dagger Talisman. 
  The Greatshield Talisman can be the situational pick if you need more blocking prowess.
• Physick Mix: Stonebarb Cracked Tear and Flame Shrouding Cracked Tear/ Opaline Hardtear/Bubbletear
• Incantations: Pest’s Thread, Golden Vow, Flame Grant Me Strength, Lord’s Heal
• Summons: Use the best spirit summon available
• Greatrune: Godrick’s Great Rune

Build Guide

This build focuses on using the Executioner Greataxe to annihilate your foes quickly.

The Ash of War Flame of Redmane on Executioner Greataxe can demolish a group of enemies and catch highly mobile enemies, as it has a large damaging Arc. 

The gameplay style you should use should be focused on breaking the enemy’s stances and dealing critical damage, as the Executioner’s Greataxe deals massive critical damage. 

Use your shield to block enemies’ attack and guard counter, as this does a lot of poise damage, breaks stances easily, which helps land critical hits.

In fact, we advise you to abuse the guard counters for this build. 

Use Pest Threads to melt away the bosses with a well-leveled Sacred Seal and buff yourself with Golden Vow and Flame Grant Me Strength. 

You can keep the Dexterity at a minimum for this build, as the Executioner’s Greataxe only needs 8 DEX to be used. 

Armor Style

We used Crucible Knight’s Set, the Axe version, for this build. It brings out the Hellish Executioner aesthetics very well.

The Frenzied Gladiator (PvP)

• Weapon: Vyke’s War Spear x2 in Power Stance – FrenzyFlame Thurst
• Shield: FingerPrint Stone Shield – infused with AoW Shield Crash
• Sacred Seal: Frenzied Flame Seal
• Armor: Get Poise above 52 with mid-roll. 
• Talismans: Great Jar’s Arsenal, Erdtree’s Favor+2, Spear Talisman and  Bull Goat’s Talisman. 
  You can use the Fire Scorpion Charm instead of Bull Goat’s Talisman if you have more than 52 Poise.
• Physick Mix: Spiked Cracked Tear and Flame-Shrouding Cracked Tear/ Opaline Hardtear
• Incantations: Inescapable Frenzy, Unedurable Frenzy, Frenzied Burst, and The Flame of Frenzy
• Summons: Anyone you like
• Greatrune: Godrick’s Great Rune

Build Guide

This build is focused on PvP, as many bosses in PvE are immune to Frenzy Status. With that in mind, during PvP, this build rocks. 

Both our weapons, the great shield, and all our incantations help build up frenzy status to take down our foes instantly. 

You can use your weapon art from Vyke’s War Spear to catch far-away enemies. Alternatively, you can use your sprinting power stance of the great spears to charge at them as well. 

Make sure you abuse the Fingerprint Stone Shield with the Shield Crash. Attacking using this shield builds up frenzy status as well.

Using the Shield Crash, you can charge at enemies and damage them multiple times, building up Frenzy status while you hold your shield forward and taking no damage.

Lastly, don’t forget you have your incantations. Each and every one of the four frenzy incantations listed above has a use.

Cast Frenzied Burst if your foe is far, and use the Inescapable Frenzy if they get too close. If your enemy is running around, use the Unendurable Frenzy. If the enemy is in mid-range, use the Flame of Frenzy, so we cover all grounds. 

You will need 20 DEX to wield Vyke’s War Spear, making it quite a heavy investment. Once you hit 20 DEX, make sure you put everything in STR and FAI. 

Armor Style

Go with the best-frenzied look you can get. Vyke’s Fingerprint Set does justice to the frenzy flame look like no other.

The Paladin of the Golden Order (PvP and PvE)

• Weapon Option 1: Golden Halberd – Golden Vow
• Shield Option 1: Erdtree Greatshield- Golden Retaliation
• Weapon Option 2: Miquellan Knight Sword- Sacred Blade / Gargoyle’s Black Blade- Corpse Wax Cutter
• Shield Option 2: Gilded Greatshield/ Distinguished Greatshield – No Skill
• Sacred Seal: Erdtree Seal
• Armor: Poise over 52 with Midroll and armor with a paladin aesthetic. 
• Talisman Option: Great Jar’s Arsenal, Erdtree’s Favor+2, Sacred Scorpion Charm/Shard of Alexander(for Option 2), and Flock’s Canvas Talisman
• Physick Mix: Holy-Shrounding Cracked Tear and Greenburst Crystal Tear/Opaline Hardtear
• Incantations: Lord’s Heal, Radagon’s Rings of Light, Aura Buff -(Golden Vow), Body Buff- (Flame Grant me Strength/ Protection of the Erdtree/ Blackflame’s Protection/ Any Elemental Fortification), Discus of Light (Optional)
• Summons: Anyone you like
• Greatrune: Godrick’s Great Rune

This build has differing options according to your preferred weapon. 

Option 1

Build Guide

Use the weapon and Shield option 1 for this straightforward build, the Golden Halberd and Erdtree Greatshield combo. Buff up Golden Vow and brandish your shield to play as a defensive powerhouse. 

With this, you can Guard Counter melee attacks and use Golden Retaliation to counter magical attacks, thus covering all grounds in the defensive offense. 

Armor Style

The Malformed Dragon Set matched this build, although we could have gone with the Leyndell Knight Helmet instead of the Helmet from the Malformed Dragon Set.

You can choose your favorite golden suit of armor with this build.

Option 2

Build Guide

The Miquellan Knight Sword is a Straight Sword, and Gargoyle’s Black Blade is a Greatsword. Both they have one similarity, which is their weapon art.

Miquellan Sword shoots a golden horizontal wave, whereas the Gargoyle’s Blade shoots a dark red vertical wave. Both of these waves do damage scaling to your faith. 

As you depend more on the holy damage weapon art for this build, try to squeeze in both the Sacred Scorpion Charm and the Shard of Alexander to boost your damage. 

Use the great shields with no skill and use the weapon arts of the weapon. You can also play with a defensive guard counter playstyle. 

Armor Style

The Leyndell Knight’s Helm and Tree Sentinel’s Set on the rest of the body perfected this golden paladin look.

Note(For Both Options): Remember to use your incantations to heal, strengthen yourself, and outlast your enemies in battle. Radagon’s Rings of Light is a very useful incantation to take into fights. It can help you kill a horde of enemies quickly. Discus of Light can be a good single target incantation to use to complement this build.  

The Primal Beast (PvP and PvE)

• Weapon: Blasphemous Blade – Taker’s Flames
• Left-Hand Weapon: Cinquedea – Quick Step
• Sacred Seal: Clawmark Seal 
• Armor: Poise 52 with Mid Roll Preferred.
• Talisman: Flock’s Canvas Talisman, Radagon’s Soreseal, Dragoncrest Shield Talisman+2, Ritual Sword Talisman, Green Turtle Talisman.  
• Physick Mix: Combine among Faith-Knot Crystal Tear/ Strength-Knot Crystal Tear/ Greenburst Crystal Tear/Opaline Hard or Bubble Tear
• Incantations: Stone of Gurranq, Beast Claw, Bestial Sling, Lord’s Heal, Temporary Body Buffs (Flame Grant me Strength/ Protection of The Erdtree/ Black Flame’s Protection/ Suitable Elemental Fortification), and Temporary Aura Buffs (Golden Vow)
• Summons: Any
• Greatrune: Godrick’s Great Rune

Build Guide

This build isn’t for defensive playstyle, it’s to head-on fight and defeat the foes before they defeat you.

The primary sources of damage are the three bestial incantations, whose powers are boosted by your primary weapons, the Clawmark Seal and Cinquedea. 

Use Stone of Gurranq from range, Bestial Sling for AoE, and Beast Claw in point-blank range to take down large enemies as each of the five shockwaves deals individual damage. 

The Taker’s Flames and the Blasphemous Blade are just for backup in case you need to get down and dirty. 

Everything else complements this strategy, from buffing incantations to the choices of talismans. 

Armor Style

We had to select the armor that makes you look like a badass beast. There aren’t many options for that. It was a close competition between Maliketh’s Set and Blaidd’s Set.

We choose Blaidd’s Set because of the Wolf Head.

The Flaming Dancer (PvE)

• Weapon: 2 X Magma Blades in Power Stance – Magma Shower
• Sacred Seal: Choose the Sacred Seal according to your offensive incantation choice
• Armor: Poise 52 with Mid Roll Preferred
• Talisman: Fire Scorpion Talisman, Shard of Alexander, Erdtree’s Favor+2, Rotten Winged Insignia/Millicent Prosthesis, Flock’s Canvas Talisman
• Physick Mix: Flame Shrouding Cracked Tear, Thorny Cracked Tear/Stonebarb Cracked Tear
• Incantations: Golden Vow, Flame Grant Me Strength, Lord’s Heal, a long-range damaging incantation to compensate for the short range of Magma Blades (Pest Threads/ Stone of Gurranq/ Giantsflame Take Thee/ Honed Bolt/ Lightning Spear)
• Summons: Any
• Greatrune: Godrick’s Great Rune

Build Guide

This build is focused on the aesthetics and the awesomeness of the dual-wielded Magma Blades. These curved swords attack quickly and deal a lot of damage. 

The damage of the Magma Blade scales very well to Strength and Faith primarily, making it a perfect weapon for this build.

You will need a minimum of 15 DEX to wield the blades, but they don’t scale well with dex. You can keep your DEX at 15 and focus on leveling your STR and FAI.

The weapon art also deals nice damage and has nice visuals bringing out the war god inside you. 

The disadvantage of this build is the short range of the Magma Blades. This means you will literally be hugging your foes just to attack and such, you will need to compensate. 

Take with you the best long ranged incantations, my personal favorite is the Pest Threads, but you can choose what suits you. 

Armor Style

To achieve the perfect style for the fiery dancer build, we used Altered Commoner’s Headband (although there are other headgear options),Altered Rotten Gravekeeper Cloak, Alberich’s Bracers, and Rotten Gravekeeper Greaves.

The armor choice doesn’t give much defense but perfectly completes the Flaming Dancer look.

Final Tips

IMPORTANT: The same type of Buffs do not stack together. i.e., only one type of weapon buff works in one instance. It is the same with shield, body, and aura buff. Keep this in mind when making your build. 

IMPORTANT:  Elemental Fortification here means the following – 

• Lighting Damage Reduction- Lightning Fortification and Golden Lightning Fortification
• Flame Damage Reduction – Flame, Protect Me
• Magic Damage Reduction – Magic Fortification and Barrier of Gold
• Holy Damage Reduction – Divine Fortification and Lord’s Divine Fortification
• All Elemental Damage Reduction – Protection of The Erdtree

These do not stack with each other, so use the one to defend from your enemy’s attack type specifically. 

Also, check out our Dexterity and Faith Build Guide.