Concentrate solely on Magic or Faith?

[_SurfPine_]

Information I have been coming across seems that it is much better to concentrate on magic or faith but not both. I do completely understand that it would be virtually impossible to level each attribute equally and compete PvP, but it also seems that you would want both equally.

It certainly can get confusing when you are new to RPG gaming and how to properly build toons. The toon I use the most is my SL 70 thief starting class. I chose thief as I liked the quickness that it provided as I was more inclined to melee mobs versus a ranged attack. I learned how to use the toon to avoid damage which I still think is very good. Then I started building DEX for my +4 Sticky LB. Soon after I switched strategy and I put points in Magic but read that Evacuate was a highly prized miracle...so I started uping Faith.

I now realize that it makes a lot more sense to concentrate on one or the other. So, with that in mind, why would you personally choose one over the other?

[boomkick]

Magic buffs damage for magic based damage (both weapons and magic). Every magic spell is based off the magic stat (except for the buffs). Faith, same concept applies except for faith based weapons get more powerful and miracles benefit (healing and God's Wrath).

It is best to focus on one or the other. I personally choose magic because of shear damage and usefulness in battle (God's Wrath, a miracle, takes 2-3 seconds to cast while magic takes at most half a second for the strongest spell). There are also many more magic boosting items then miracle/faith boosting stuff (3 magic boosting items and only 1 miracle boosting).

In general the reason you want to concentrate on one stat is because that will be your strong point. Once you get really good in the game you start being able to do be all around even though you have a strong point. But remember all builds have weakness, especially people who focus on all around characters, their weakness is every specialized character.

[KouZYang]

personally I have always done magic, because I use royalty and I think Magic is bad@zz. With my royalty, i focused on faith, mag, and int and it is good for range battles and just regular play but I keep dying to good melee people with anti magic field in PVP...

But now that I have beated the game, I created a new character who specializes in dex, str, and faith and it's doing quite well. For Melee, I don't use magic any more and just focus on range for primarily attacking and faith for support like second chance and heal and god's wrath (for those hiding back stabbers ) It has been pwning for me so far…

Since your doing range it seems, I think faith is best for you. In my experience, magic is for offense and faith is for support. it's your call.

[Shimizoki]

I agree with almost everything boom said.

On a second note though I went MOSTLY magic, I leveled my faith up just high enough to hold a talisman of the beasts. Why?

PVP:
Its happened to all of us, you are running along and all of a sudden "BP ______ has invaded". you turn run at him to attack and he sprints right past you and runs around the corner goes upstairs and hides behind some mob... Its at this point you either rage quit, wait till he gives up and leaves, or you run up there to fight him all the while dodging him and the mobs.

He is in a different room, you know exactly where, what do you do? I stand right beneath him and cast gods wrath which goes through walls and ceilings. 1 of 3 things happens he either dies, he lives and all the mobs die, he lives and the mobs are almost dead. If you have a lot of MP cast it twice in a row and he dies, or if he does happen to live all the mobs are gone so you can at least fight him 1-1.

PVE:

Areas such as 5-1 where when you jump down you are swiftly met by 5 flame wielding mobs and are skewered, gods wrath you can cast once or twice to kill off all the enemies before dropping down and in. 5-2 the blood babies in the lake can all be killed with wrath, while firestorm wont touch them since they are on a different level than the ground.

You can do serious damage to enemies such as Miralda before she even knows you are there... if you time it right (and are this kind of player) you can bait her then blast her off the edge and she will fall to her death.

In the end I say specialize in Magic, but at least put enough in faith so that you can cast miracles if you need to.

[_SurfPine_]

But remember all builds have weakness, especially people who focus on all around characters...

that seems to be the biggest problem...wanting to take advantage of certain spells and miracles and ending up with a master of none. This game, it's like a big candy shop.

[random]

I leveled my faith up just high enough to hold a talisman of the beasts. Why?

lol, why? with ToB you NEVER level magic as primary. mag18/faith36 will do to the point exact same damage as mag36/faith18 with magic and miracle spells (it does for me). ToB scales from both (for both... as in... sum of both) and if you scale magic (like you, god forbid) you lost 2 advantages.

1. scaling faith also gives you miracle slots
2. scaling faith also raises magic defense

if you need more MP you need to scale Will/Inteligence anyway and Will/Inteligence gives you magic slots.

they both also raise Physical defense. ToB will start producing larger damage than wooden catalyst as soon you cross sum of 35 as it scales longer. Raising magic to more than 30 and not use Insanity catalyst is waste of levels. Light soul at 40 produces about 4 points more damage than Light soul at 35. All catalysts except Insanity are C range, ToB is double C and Insanity is A.

Only other sensible use than insanity catalyst of magic beyond 30 is for melee with moon and crescent as they deal damage way more often.

So in short... with ToB you can decide on melee weapon type and level that one. But with additional miracle slots and additional magic protection blessed is better choice (it also has HP regen but disables hiding since regen produces glow) as it is in exactly same range as crescent )crescent also glows with MP regen). unless you use magic as primary, where boosts work the same with everything i specified.

This is why my faith/ToB build always packs moon (or any weapon with good static damage like dragon, makoto... without additional glow) and blessed weapon. If i start hiding i simply switch weapon in right hand.

ToB scales until sum gets to 60 and additional damage starts fading away with every level, but at sum 60 damage is not far from insanity and way above wooden.

[Spine-Fist]

lol, why? with ToB you NEVER level magic as primary. mag18/faith36 will do to the point exact same damage as mag36/faith18 with magic and miracle spells (it does for me). ToB scales from both (for both... as in... sum of both) and if you scale magic (like you, god forbid) you lost 2 advantages.

Wait... Faith scales with Spells (And by that I mean not Miracles) if you use ToB?

[Asaomar]

no, it doesn't. tob just has both magic and miracle modifiers on it and allows you to cast both. if you're playing a magic user you still need to raise your magic stat.

[Spine-Fist]

no, it doesn't. tob just has both magic and miracle modifiers on it and allows you to cast both. if you're playing a magic user you still need to raise your magic stat.

So when you say it does the same damage at 36/18 as it does 18/36, do you mean the damage it deals with melee attacks...?

[Asaomar]

i never said anything about the damage it deals, random was the one spouting off wrong information about the item.

its just the same as using any other magic/miracle casting item.
ToB has a 170 mod for both magic and miracles
talisman of god has a 200 miracle mod
wooden catalyst has a 180 magic mod
silver catalyst has a 160 magic mod
insanity catalyst has a 230 magic mod

out of all the casting devices, insanity will give you the best magic damage(but it cuts your mp pool in half) and talisman of god will give you the best miracle damage.

people just like talisman of beasts because it lets you cast both magic and miracles with one item so you can do two things. 1st, you free up one equipment slot, and 2nd you don't have to worry about something like casting second chance then switching to another item for pvp combat. you generally won't be given time to switch.

[Spine-Fist]

i never said anything about the damage it deals, random was the one spouting off wrong information about the item.

Oh, whoops. Missed that part. I was pretty surprised by what Random said. I was considering making a Faith-based spellcaster. I was trying to cheese Scirvir with Thief's Ring/Lava Bow to test this out myself, but manual aiming makes interrupting his heal a real pain. Thanks for letting me know.

[Dynovac]

I've gone with a mostly faith build but in order to cast Miracles that cost 100 MP (Wrath of God, Second Chance) you need a Magic score around 15. That gives you two magic slots right there. I've already found a catalyst so I've been fooling around with those two slots of arcane magic just as a supplimentary tool.