After the 1.04 update Dragon Communion Seal got a nerf to its arcane scaling and status buildup from the arcane scaling (new catalyst calc linked to my dual wield staff guide). It is no longer as OP, but still a very strong seal especially at low levels of investment. This remains the strongest hybrid catalyst at lower levels of investment!
I'm doing an arcane dex build. Do you know the math for it's effectiveness for this build? I do have a bit of faith as well. Would it still be my strongest bet?
Yeah the arcane staff got nerfed as well. Now blood magic is garbage. With 80 arcane and a +0 staff it took about 4 castings to proc bleed. With a +10 staff, mobs die before bleed procs.
Hey! It's me again im currently running a pure dragon cult build and it's doing really good rn, I just don't know if I should stick with the grovel stone throughout pve, or switch to the Some other seal. Also do you know which incantations from dragon cult I should use more then others? Any underrated ones?
@@bryceg73 Gravel Stone would be your best bet if you run purely dragon cult incantations. Death Lightning is surprisingly good at close range assuming you don't get knocked out before your animation pops off and don't mind the lightning landing in slightly RNG'd places near you. Lightning spear is probably a staple for low mana spell and good for sniping. Avoid Vyke's Dragonbolt (the buff). Lightning armament is not buffed by the seal. The rest of the stuff have about the performance. I would say find something that suits your playstyle.
@@hz_rd You can remove rot w it... that's all I can really recommend it for. If u run around w it all the time you might get opportunities to remove build up of statuses but it's high cost and not super useful since items do the same thing.
Erdtree - pure faith Golden Order - highest non-specific damage late game Dragon Communion - fth/arc Clawmark - str/fth Godslayer - any other hybrid build at 50fth Giant’s / Gravelstone - Incantation specific builds in NG+ when dual-wielded Frenzied Flame - off-hand for passive boost with Dragon Communion Seal Fingerseal - this thing exists, I guess
This entire time I've been using a maxed out finger seal, I didn't think the scaling would be so drastically different, right now im using a +9 Golden Order seal and it's so much better. The video is a huge help
I switched from 80 faith earthtree seal To 40/65 dragon communion seal today And was a bit schocked, that my instant heal spell Was only halve as effective as before. The damage is way higher with bleed now tho
I've used it since day 1 of release and I have over 400 hours played now. I started with arcane Dex build and fully upgraded a scaling asking with huge arcane it's amazing
Now I feel a lot better about semi-arbitrarily picking the Godslayer Seal to invest upgrades in with my 50-60 Faith character even though I ended up not using the Godslayer incantations very often.
Using Prince of Death staff + Golden Order Seal with 80 Int 80 Faith. Scalings are 390 and 430. In short you get the best of both worlds and you can use every skill and incantation aside from the blood ones.
Clawmark is also really good for low-level incantation utility. I have a bare-minimum stat build for using Treespear at RL50, and with 19 str, 20 fth, Clawmark outperforms the other seals by a thin margin. But with that low stats it's still not much more than a Flame Grant Me Strength apply-er
Yep, this is true. Clawmark is great at lower levels of investment. My explanation is leaning more towards higher levels (all seals are assumed to be fully upgraded in the vid).
@@Chrightt No absolutely! Thanks for this info, it's amazing stuff. I took your spell catalyst video's info elsewhere and people didn't even believe me lol. Numbers don't lie though. Wanted to give this tip for anyone else who wants to try lower-level invasions where you don't die in 2 hits
@@Chrightt If you leave int/arc at 10: If you have 20 strength the clawmark seal is the best until 32 faith. If you have 30 strength the clawmark seal is the best until 50 faith. If you have 40 strength the clawmark seal is the best until 56 faith. If you have more than 20 strength and your strength is equal to or greater than your faith the clawmark seal is Always the best option until 65 strength/faith.
Hey there, I noticed that you didn’t discuss the fact that if you two-hand the Clawmark Seal apparently it’ll boost the damage of spells you use with it. I know that it really doesn’t have to do with incant scaling, but that may be something a Str/Fth build considers if choosing between the Clawmark Seal or other seals. That aside though, this video was really helpful and I can’t wait to see more informative ER stuff from you soon!
actually just had this comment a few hours before you so I'll post the reply here. Two-handing a clawmark seal is mostly a bad idea because you can do Cinquedea + clawmark seal which would boost bestial incantations by 20% instead of 10%, giving you % increase vs 2 handing it if you're using bestial incantations. You also lose a weapon art, which for the most part, is a very powerful tool. Better off dual wielding seals than 2handing a clawmark. Besides, claw mark seal hits a major softcap at 45 str, so your gains after that is minimal.
@@Chrightt Ah, thanks for the response man! You are definitely right about losing out on a ash of war skill when two handing the Clawmark Seal, even with the neat 20% increase to beastial incantations. Sooner or later I hope to do some testing with what would work best with a Str/Fth build myself and while it sucks that the dedicated sacred chime for those builds isn’t that amazing for it, maybe that might change as weapons, skills, and spell catalysts are balanced throughout the game’s updates.
@@Chrightt I was under the impression that the offhand effect was still active when two handing, thus you'd get the benefits of both. You do typically get the passive of your offhand regardless with other equipment.
@@thesinhound Yes it does, the best and easiest example to understand is Icon Shield. It grants life regen (abotu 3/s) and it continues to heal you while you 2hand any weapon, with Icon Shield being on your back.
@@Chrightt I wouldn't say minimal: 2 handing gives you 50% extra stat adjustment, so at 45 faith 54 str you would get over 300 incant scaling, which seems pretty decent even when compared to the 70 faith table and gives you good damage for a str/faith build. The real problem with the clawmark seal is that beast incantations suck in all but that one spell you mentioned, and its biggest use is chaining into a different spell. I just use the clawmark for casting and switch to a boosting seal depending by spell on the off-hand.
To summarise. At below 70 faith, Godslayer At 70 or more, Erdtree. If your Arcane is higher than your faith, dragon If your Strength is higher than faith, clawmark is best until roughly 50 faith Clawmark does gain the 50% strength boost from 2 handing Any specific incant boosting seals or weapons can be offhanded to give the bonus while casting with the stronger one, even if the seal is being 2-handed(clawmark). Any weapon buffs (electric, bloodflame, etc) will only count your faith stat when calculating scaling, ignoring all other stats. If you're using those, only consider pure fth scaling seals. Using flame art infusion with a higher faith investment and lower str will give you better incantation results overall without much loss in melee DPS. So unless you're a Strength build with minor investment for some bestial or buff incants, or you're married to an unga bunga stick with high Str requirements like me, consider switching to a more fth focused stat spread. Sacred infusion will get the exact same damage as flame art, but there are many bosses resistant to holy damage, so in practice flame art is better. Though be aware, any weapon which deals elemental damage, flame art included, cannot be buffed with elements. If you're using these consider standard, heavy or keen infusion over flame art. Avoid Quality infusion, it's terrible even on a quality build. Of course, you can just check spell buff or AR yourself in the status screen if you're unsure. Just remember to 2-hand clawseal before checking.
dragon communion seal is nuts, i picked it up for my occult scythe build because i wanted swarm of flies, and i put frenzied burst in as a slot filler because of its insane range. i slept on it for half a week, only using it to snipe distant enemies in pve, until i threw it out trying to catch a host of fingers who kept bloodhound stepping away. after a bit of testing, i resolved to only use it against mage ganks because the stun from madness is so broken. that rule fell out a couple rivers of blood later, though.
frenzied burst w dragon communion is absolutely nuts in pvp as well, in peculiar if you use dragon communion(mostly ezeke's/rotten breath + other status moves such as swarm of flies)
coming from your armored core videos too this. crazy how much you improved your scripts and production quality and yet the information quality is still really high. glad i found your channel!
I'm also surprised there's not a single hybrid/weapon catalyst in the entire game. Maybe they're saving it for DLC, but I think it would've been cool to have something like the flame scar sword or a catalyst that casts both spells and incantations.
@@NightmareBlade10 I'd love a Faith Catalyst that also takes the form of your Right Hand Weapon when you One-Hand so you can Powerstance and cast Faith Incantations, but the Weapon in your off-hand only scales from Faith, does Holy damage, and Your Ash of War becomes whatever Faith Spell you have equipped like how Shield Ashes of War overwrite right hand weapons.
@@KaiKrimson56 I've definitely thought of something like this before. For how diverse the game is you would have expected them to do something a bit more interesting in terms of catalysts.
@@KaiKrimson56 I assume the devs didn't know what direction to take catalyst weapons because of the ash of war system, so they are leaving it to DLC or scrapping it entirely. Imagine making seals obsolete because you can change around the spellcasting ash on whatever weapon you like. It would need a lot of attention and fine tuning, it would walk the line of not stepping on the seals' toes and not being completely useless/unworthy of the ash slot. The unique weapons boosting certain incantations, like the bestial dagger, fill the role without interacting with the problems it can occur. Besides, ashes of war is basically a pick-your-spell for weapons anyways. Although a unique somber weapon would be cool to see, it would just have problems with incant/damage scaling being married. I have faith (pun intended) that they will come out with something similar for DLC. They just need to assess if it's a good fit in the new systems.
The real strength of Golden Order seal at regular levels is allowing you to run int/fai, with access to the best spells of both pools. Run it with Prince of Death Staff and Sword of Night and Flame for versatility, while still maintaining comparable damage to pure Stat builds
Yeah, i have golden order in the right and prince of d staff in left. Got 10 memory slots 4 spells(dark moon takes 2slots)5 incant or 3 when i use useless but best looking ever scarlet aeonia. Love the frozen lightning spear, and if im not mistaken, it also counts as a frost spell so works with ranni's hat? Not sure on that but i still use it even if just for the abdula's moonblade and dark moon
These vids helped a lot with brainstorming my blood mage builds of sorts. I want to run pure Briars and Blood Oath spells, which means Faith/Arcane, so it's looking like Dragon Communion Seal for the bleed from Swarm of Flies, w/ Azur staff off-hand for the cast speed, and Albinauric main and Guilty off-hand for thorn spells.
Just...narrow it down to one seal, and one staff dude. Believe me, it's going to work out for the best. Azur staff for cast speed? I mean, that second and loss of focus in urgent situation to swap to a different staff to save like 0.06 seconds on a spell is really worth it? You want to streamline your builds, while retaining their functionality. If you're going to juggle staffs like this you might completely lose any advantages they provide.
@@sfLionheart Really feels like using Radagon's Icon with ~20 dex for weapon requirements is enough cast speed for PvE, it's 50 out of 70 dex that counts for cast speed... and the staff costs you a hand rather than a pocket, even ignoring the FP consumption. There's no reason to use both the staff and the talisman for PvE, so choosing the one with the least opportunity cost seems like the way to go.
I still don't get why the erd tree seal doesn't boost erd tree incantations. There are a few offensive incantations which would really need the boost they are slow and could do more damage. But there IS a staff for two thorn sorceries. Only two they have their own catalyst. Maybe we get a better seal for offensive incantations in the dlc.
I currently main a Witchblade custom styled INT/DEX main with a little bit of investment in STR and VIG to balance some things out. But I plan to dabble in some kind of FTH/DEX Madness Maiden later just because I heard there's a Devil Kazuya and Devil Jin referenced eye Lazer beam. CYCLOPS too from x men I guess. So this guide will be helpful to me eventually after I reroll.
Oh so thats good to know. I was testing out the dragon com seal and seen it was pretty op with my arcane bleed especially to throw in a rot breath dragon.
Hello there! Great video! I just wanted to add something to the info pool. I have a character that has both 80 faith and 80 arcane; with said stat setup, the Dragon Communion seal outperforms the Erdtree Seal by a good margin. However, if I recall correctly, at 80 int and 80 faith (one of my previous settings on the same character), I think the incantation scaling for the Golden Order seal was even higher than Dragon Communion's at 80 faith and 80 arcane. Being practical, though, I found little utility in having both sorceries and incantations as opposed to pairing arcane with incantations (and a similar argument could be made for arcane and intelligence since pairing bleed and frost is extremely beneficial).
thanks for mentioning this, testing with the same spreadsheet chrightt was using, it even outpreforms communion at 40/40 int/faith opposed to 40/40 faith/arcane, albeit by just a few points, but that's really nice for the versatility gained even if you are losing out on the madness, bleed, and poison affliction increase.
@@EleanorDahlia yeah no problem; always glad to share info! Let me give you the scaling values I'm getting on my character now when soft-capped (80'd) in Faith, Int, Str, Dex, and Arcane: Erdtree Seal: 353 Dragon Communion Seal: 387 Golden Order Seal: 390 Frenzied Flame Seal: 373 Godslayer Seal: 329 I do want to point out that, for some odd reason, bleed procs from incantations seem to trigger more often while using the Dragon Communion Seal, but I haven't actually measured it to prove/disprove the hypothesis lol.
@@EleanorDahlia Yup. One of my PvE characters is a INT/FTH build with a mixed focus on Death Sorceries and Black Blade usage. I also found that at 50/50 stat investment that the Golden Order seal was simply better than the Dragon Communion one. Honestly I think it's a case where it's better to have two A scalings for the seals, rather than the S and B scaling when both are being counted. Additionally, it seems like even the type of spell used for comparison can make a huge difference in outcome, even if seal bonuses are a non-factor.
I hope they fix the madness madness for pvp without ruining the dragon communion seal. I'm currently doing an arcane faith dragon build and having so much fun with it
I would like to argue that Fingerseal is for low faith builds that wish to cast buffs and heals, since below 40 (For Erdtree) or 27 (for Godslayer) faith they don't have a better scaling seal to use. In the case of Healing and Buff incantations, it WILL provide the best bang for your buck until you become a faith hybrid instead of a faith dabbler.
Also, while it isn't the best at anything, it's decent at just about everything. Great to upgrade and use until you figure out what kind of incantations you wanna use. And it's super easy to get.
I'm still early in my first playthrough, using the clawmark seal together with mostly being a strength build to get those buffs going. I'm not really planning to dump a lot of levels into faith so its a good little thing to me rn.
very nice video! I tested them on my build. It's a bit counterintuitive that depending on your build a dragon spell may turn out weaker with the dragon seal than with another seal. Or a black flame incantation turns out to deal less damage even tough godslayer seal should support that.
Another nice thing about the formless seals is their lack of weight; letting you slot them in even if you're reaching the cap on your weight limit. Hoping we get a Demon's Scar or Mace of the Insolent someday.
I've used the Dragon Communion for at least four playthroughs, and only recently switched to Golden Order seal, and I've found that does more damage than what I had previously.
You mentioned that Clawmark Seal only scales off faith with weapon buffs, but all of the multi-scaling seals; Dragon Communion, Frenzied Flame, and Golden Order also have this bug, and not just for buffs, but with healing spells too.
I played my second run with 2 dragon seal +9 and high arc and mid faith build. Dragons are so much fun. Now I changed it and focused on 80 faith and doing more lightning. Still had the most fun with dragons :-) First playthrough with Int and Magic. Was pretty boring in the end since it was always the same. With Faith you have so many more options and especially awesome animations
Placidusax ruin is also weird. On another channel someone told that it's not a dragon incarnation. But on the other hand it would be the only dragon incarnation without arcane requirement.
I'd say gravelstone seal is still best for 60 faith simply because dragon cult incantations >>> godslayer Lightning spear is too good and all the ancient dragon spells are pretty good, you just need to time them right.
thats diferent for every player but still you can dual wield the highest inc seal then offhand the gravelstone or the gigant or the one you like the most to maximize damage however if you are mixing the incantations with your weapon it can be tedious to keep changing to the other seal so then pick the one you are most confortable with
@@badthunder115 I know it’s a while later but based on what you’re saying, for my build that i’ll be primarily using a spear and shield, with plans to only use the dragon cult incant, and since I only want to have one seal in my inventory, the gravel stone seal will be that best single one for this ?
@@man.728 the best would be to test, find an enemy and try with both seals, but i think if your faith isnt super high then the gravel stone would be best also lighting armament isnt buffed by the gravel stone
Since this only focuses on higher investment AND dealing direct damage with incantations I'm not sure what is best for me but I'll assume it's godslayer. I'm running 25 faith on melee build for flame grant me strength and golden vow but I also use electrify armament and blood flame blade. I'm sure the difference will be minor but I'd still like to invest in the best deal for the weapon buffs.
I think golden order seal is a little underrated for meta levels. It lets you put meta incants on a int/fth hybrid that leans int while still getting great incant scaling. At lvl 150 you can have 56 vig/40 mind/20 end/52 int/32 fth, enough to use azur's staff and supplement your max cast speed sorceries with incants like bestial sling, WoG, Honed Bolt, etc. at 316 incant scaling AND all those incants benefit from azur cast speed too. An odd build I know, but synergizes better than one might think, and it's just fun as hell to be the wizard casting WoG at max speed to get people the hell off you. Not to mention all the utility. You might think you lose the damage race against those who went full 80 int but then you put on barrier of gold and suddenly you outdamage them hard in PvP, and golden vow helps to make up for dps loss in PvE
The seals can be so confusing. Like, if I only want to cast the Dragon Cult spells like Lightning Spear... the seal that boost Dragon Cult incantations isn't always the best option. Personally, I think maybe most the seals should have about the same scaling so the passive boosts always make that seal better for using that specific type of incantation. I need to be a mathmetician to figure out at what stats it's actually better than the seals that don't boost those incantations
7:49 - If someone is trying to run a RL200 FTH/ARC build, and they want to make the best use of both of these stats to focus on fire related incantations, Dragon Cult Incantations and Dragon Communion Incantations, what is the best thing to do: leave both at 45, or increase ARC to 60 and leave FTH at 45? Also, which seal should one go for: Dragon Communion Seal or Gravel Stone Seal; or use Gravel Stone Seal just for the Dragon Communion Incantations? Thank you for your help in advance! Love your videos and your attention to detail! I'm glad I found your channel!
You know, it's sort of peculiar that the best tools for int/fth builds are the golden order seal and the prince of death staff. The factions that created those items are diametrically opposed.
I've been running the finger seal for my entire playthrough out of laziness lol Never wanted to look into which seal to invest in so went off the logic that the basic staff in ds3 was one of the best ones, so obviously the starting seal would be at least decent right? Thanks for the guide, helped a lot
Thanks a lot. I waited until I got to fire giant to really bother looking up if the Clawmark seal was really the best seal could be using for Beast incantations. The jump from 289sb to 354sb was quite nice. Run would have probably been easier if I started with that. But now I feel like I broke RP.
you're off on the clawmark seal and equipping cinquededa it is better to equip the seal in right hand and dual-hand it for the STR multiplier, with the dagger on the left hand
Great video, saved me a lot of time. I was initially complaining in my head about your sound quality, but dismissed the thought after realising you sound exactly like Kim Kitsuragi from Disco Elysium, which is a great bonus
Coming back to this because despite the frenzied flame seal being weird and bad I genuinely haven't found something that gives me higher incantation buff than it does. I run an even 40 dex/faith so I can cast frenzy stuff extremely fast, I've upgraded several other seals to the max and they just aren't as good, I'm wondering if I'm missing something
This video is missing a very key point of information, Weapon buffs I tested it awhile ago but dragon communion was the absolute worse at this aspect of the game Seals with specific buffs to certain spells didn't get affect by said buff Finnaly it seems the higher the base incant scaling= the better buff you receive
The healing and buffs incantations scale with your faith, at 60 faith godslayer i would full heal from lords heal, when i respected to dragon+arcane lords heal did a little over half my health even tho i had 50% more scaling. So technically if i only used faith as a stat but used the dragon seal to the point my scaling got to 250 i would get better heals, it is technically the sealsnfault but ultimately a game mechanic as to why non damage incants are underwelming with dragon seal
@@petercottantail7850 I didn't test it by switching my stats, so I cannot confirm this statement,Sounds reasonable though. This makes a pure faith build more viable in a aspect where split scaling wouldn't, so as a balance mechanic i like it.
another point to make: frenzy flame seal has 0 weight where other seals weigh around 1.5. useful if all you want out of the incantations is non-scaling buffs like blessing's boon/flame grant me strength/golden vow
Chrightt … would you recommend Golden Order or Gravel for late end-game / NG+ - PVE Intelligence / Lightning throwing character ? My guy is mainly Int, at lvl-125 now, but “in the far future” NG+2, etc - I can see him wielding Prince of Death staff and having like 80-Int / 80-Faith. Under those conditions, is it still better to run a +25 Gravel Seal to get the most pop out of the Lightning Spears , or does Golden Order somehow beat out that 15% Lightning bonus due to its dual scale of Int / Faith, at very high stat levels ? 🤔
If you have 80 int/faith the golden order seal will outperform the gravel stone seal unless you're dual wielding gravel stone seals for double the passive buff (which performs slightly better).
@@Chrightt Right, but the people who get the value out of this usually aren't casting. They toss out a spell to shoot something off a roof or whatever, then un 2 hand and go back to weapon. I have done this a lot with clawmark on my STR/FAI build: shoot a couple lightning bolts and then swap to Golden Halberd and Greatshield for melee.
I found most of the information very useful, but I hope you could improve the audio (english is not my first language so I miss certain words). Good job nontheless.
I'm planning to run a Faith build with a LOT of Godslayer incantations with a bit of Dragon (such as Dragon Claw), but I'm not sure whether to invest in Dragon Communion Seal or Godslayer seal more, especially when my main weapon Eleonora's Poleblade so I have to invest a bit in Arcane already to use it. I'm just not sure which seal would be better for this and whether I should invest harder in Faith or Arcane with this build
AFAIK keeping seals in off-hand still grants the type bonus even if the incantation is casted with other seal in main hand (having clawmark in offhand and casting bestial incantations with a godslayer receives the bonus dmg)
Yes, but as I said in the video, you'd rather use Cinquedea in the right hand and cast with godslayer on the left hand. Essentially same as godslayer + beast mark except you get a quickstep and a melee attack. Mainhand/offhand for seals doesn't matter right/left hand. Mainhand only means the seal you cast with.
If you're a pure faith caster only using one type of damaging spells, it seems better to dual-wield two of the same Seal (e.g. Giant's Seal for pyromancies). [Not counting the Beast Claw or Dragon Communion] The Golden Order Seals uniquely can be dual-wielded and stacked with the Radiant Gold Mask - unless there's some hidden discount factor, that would result in (110%)^3 damage, in other words a 33.1% damage buff to Golden Order incantations...wouldn't that be enough to offset the worse faith scaling if you specced into the minimum Int (e.g. 23 or 31 for triple/Ragagon rings?)
Don't see anyone mentioning this so thought I'd say the Lusat's and Azur's staves actually effect incantations as well as sorceries even though it doesn't say so in the description, same with the radagon icon talisman
I'd love an indepth look at infusions versus incantations like the armaments. From my testing, running more faith than dex and pumping an electrify armament on with gravel stone using say the nagakiba outperforms a lightning infused nagakiba going pure dex.
I just wished there was another weapon other than Erdtree dagger that had the capability to scale to both Faith and Arcane for the Dragon Communion Seal. It's actually funny even when I ran the calculations even doe Rejuvina has no faith scaling it beats out the Erdtree by a large amount.
Does the dragon communion seal increase the bleed from bloodboon and bloodflame talons? I tried testing this on the albinaurics at the palace ledge approach site of grace, as well as the giant at the secluded cell, but a definitive conclusion was difficult to reach by eye alone, no matter how much I shifted stats around. Swarm of flies bleed build up definitely does scale with the arcane seal. But for bloodflame talons and bloodboon, I just cannot figure that out. Please let me know if you can test this somehow or know the answer
Hello, I believe it does. I suggest trying to do it with less than 25 arcane and then trying it again with 60 arcane. I think you should be able see the difference more clearly.
I find the Dragon Communion Seal to be an odd choice. It scales mostly with arcane, but the arcane scaling only affects damage. This means the seal is great for damage, notably dragon incantations, but it is relatively weak for buffs and heals. However, since you have an arcane build, you have no shortage of damage from weapon choices. This means the thing your seal is good for is probably the thing you need it for the least. Obviously, it is a great option if you do not want to increase faith, but if you are looking to incantations for something other than damage, then you really do have to raise faith and use a different seal because all that arcane scaling does not apply outside of damage.
Well, that explains why my encantations are more damaging than my spells, been using the dragon comunion seal and upgrading arcane for the bleed build i did. Was looking info on the best seals but i gess i will stik with the dragón seal then.
Golden Order Triple rings of light is actually really good for pvp but that's kinda the only viable INT/FTH spell. You can aim at the ground while someone tries to rush you and hit them 2-3 times with it for around 900 damage with a optimized build and since it lingers it's hard to avoid.
When building for a specific incantation type, for example Dragon cult, is it better to use 2 Gravelstones to double up the bonus, or is it better to use the godslayer/Erdtree seal in your main hand with a Gravelstone in your offhand?
I know it's unrealistic to expect a whole new video (and unnecessary) but since the DC seal nerf in 1.04, would you mind making a pinned comment comparing dragon communion spell damage of a FAI/ARC build dual-wielding DC seals VS a pure FAI build mainhanding erdtree seal and off-handing DC seal?
Saw this just when I was going to crunch the numbers myself! Kinda bummed out that the dragon communion seal is so strong as arcane builds feel super cheese in PVP right now. Offhanding azurs, frenzied flame, and giants catalysts with mainhand erdtree might be a good alternative to play optimally across the incantation spread with pure faith.
Yeah, I think if arcane is going to double dip into making status apply faster too the seal should not be this strong. Honestly, status in general is a bit too easy to apply/make easier to apply quicker. I would like to see base resistances slightly buffed across the board for armor or just the character itself.
After the 1.04 update Dragon Communion Seal got a nerf to its arcane scaling and status buildup from the arcane scaling (new catalyst calc linked to my dual wield staff guide). It is no longer as OP, but still a very strong seal especially at low levels of investment. This remains the strongest hybrid catalyst at lower levels of investment!
I'm doing an arcane dex build. Do you know the math for it's effectiveness for this build? I do have a bit of faith as well. Would it still be my strongest bet?
Yeah the arcane staff got nerfed as well. Now blood magic is garbage. With 80 arcane and a +0 staff it took about 4 castings to proc bleed. With a +10 staff, mobs die before bleed procs.
Hey! It's me again im currently running a pure dragon cult build and it's doing really good rn, I just don't know if I should stick with the grovel stone throughout pve, or switch to the Some other seal. Also do you know which incantations from dragon cult I should use more then others? Any underrated ones?
@@bryceg73 I got the two mixed up are you doing the dragon breath spells or the lightning spells?
@@bryceg73 Gravel Stone would be your best bet if you run purely dragon cult incantations. Death Lightning is surprisingly good at close range assuming you don't get knocked out before your animation pops off and don't mind the lightning landing in slightly RNG'd places near you. Lightning spear is probably a staple for low mana spell and good for sniping. Avoid Vyke's Dragonbolt (the buff). Lightning armament is not buffed by the seal. The rest of the stuff have about the performance. I would say find something that suits your playstyle.
Frenzy seal has no stat requirements so its an easy sacred seal for int players to cast laws of regression
Is there any seal that one can add an AOW to? Like Giants ring seems to have low requirements and No skill, so I'm wondering if I can put an AOW on it
Seal*
@@steventheunis9546 putting lifesteal punch on a seal would be funny to see in pvp at least.
Is law of regression valuable other than just revealing the statue in the capital?
@@hz_rd You can remove rot w it... that's all I can really recommend it for. If u run around w it all the time you might get opportunities to remove build up of statuses but it's high cost and not super useful since items do the same thing.
Erdtree - pure faith
Golden Order - highest non-specific damage late game
Dragon Communion - fth/arc
Clawmark - str/fth
Godslayer - any other hybrid build at 50fth
Giant’s / Gravelstone - Incantation specific builds in NG+ when dual-wielded
Frenzied Flame - off-hand for passive boost with Dragon Communion Seal
Fingerseal - this thing exists, I guess
This entire time I've been using a maxed out finger seal, I didn't think the scaling would be so drastically different, right now im using a +9 Golden Order seal and it's so much better. The video is a huge help
I’m running a faith/bleed build so can confirm, dragon communion seal is indeed busted
I switched from 80 faith earthtree seal
To 40/65 dragon communion seal today And was a bit schocked, that my instant heal spell Was only halve as effective as before.
The damage is way higher with bleed now tho
Literally the only way I could make my "self challenge" "arcane no bleed" build work.
@@BLUEBOYISLEDGE thanks, i thought so
@@funkymachine marais executioner sword & legacy of eochaid are arc-scaling and non-bleed
Glad to know Dragon Communion Seal is such a strong seal. Running it with a dragon build right now. Very helpful video, thanks.
I've used it since day 1 of release and I have over 400 hours played now. I started with arcane Dex build and fully upgraded a scaling asking with huge arcane it's amazing
Use it on my arc/faith/dex spellblade build, it’s definitely handy
Now I feel a lot better about semi-arbitrarily picking the Godslayer Seal to invest upgrades in with my 50-60 Faith character even though I ended up not using the Godslayer incantations very often.
Using Prince of Death staff + Golden Order Seal with 80 Int 80 Faith. Scalings are 390 and 430. In short you get the best of both worlds and you can use every skill and incantation aside from the blood ones.
Clawmark is also really good for low-level incantation utility. I have a bare-minimum stat build for using Treespear at RL50, and with 19 str, 20 fth, Clawmark outperforms the other seals by a thin margin. But with that low stats it's still not much more than a Flame Grant Me Strength apply-er
Yep, this is true. Clawmark is great at lower levels of investment. My explanation is leaning more towards higher levels (all seals are assumed to be fully upgraded in the vid).
@@Chrightt No absolutely! Thanks for this info, it's amazing stuff. I took your spell catalyst video's info elsewhere and people didn't even believe me lol. Numbers don't lie though.
Wanted to give this tip for anyone else who wants to try lower-level invasions where you don't die in 2 hits
Its great since you get it early so if you never plan on going above 25 faith and pumping strength you never need to worry about another seal.
@@Chrightt If you leave int/arc at 10:
If you have 20 strength the clawmark seal is the best until 32 faith.
If you have 30 strength the clawmark seal is the best until 50 faith.
If you have 40 strength the clawmark seal is the best until 56 faith.
If you have more than 20 strength and your strength is equal to or greater than your faith the clawmark seal is Always the best option until 65 strength/faith.
Flames Cleanse Me! is useful for PvE, having a consistent way to deal with Scarlet Rot is invaluable imo.
Hey there, I noticed that you didn’t discuss the fact that if you two-hand the Clawmark Seal apparently it’ll boost the damage of spells you use with it. I know that it really doesn’t have to do with incant scaling, but that may be something a Str/Fth build considers if choosing between the Clawmark Seal or other seals. That aside though, this video was really helpful and I can’t wait to see more informative ER stuff from you soon!
actually just had this comment a few hours before you so I'll post the reply here.
Two-handing a clawmark seal is mostly a bad idea because you can do Cinquedea + clawmark seal which would boost bestial incantations by 20% instead of 10%, giving you % increase vs 2 handing it if you're using bestial incantations. You also lose a weapon art, which for the most part, is a very powerful tool. Better off dual wielding seals than 2handing a clawmark.
Besides, claw mark seal hits a major softcap at 45 str, so your gains after that is minimal.
@@Chrightt Ah, thanks for the response man! You are definitely right about losing out on a ash of war skill when two handing the Clawmark Seal, even with the neat 20% increase to beastial incantations. Sooner or later I hope to do some testing with what would work best with a Str/Fth build myself and while it sucks that the dedicated sacred chime for those builds isn’t that amazing for it, maybe that might change as weapons, skills, and spell catalysts are balanced throughout the game’s updates.
@@Chrightt I was under the impression that the offhand effect was still active when two handing, thus you'd get the benefits of both. You do typically get the passive of your offhand regardless with other equipment.
@@thesinhound Yes it does, the best and easiest example to understand is Icon Shield. It grants life regen (abotu 3/s) and it continues to heal you while you 2hand any weapon, with Icon Shield being on your back.
@@Chrightt I wouldn't say minimal: 2 handing gives you 50% extra stat adjustment, so at 45 faith 54 str you would get over 300 incant scaling, which seems pretty decent even when compared to the 70 faith table and gives you good damage for a str/faith build. The real problem with the clawmark seal is that beast incantations suck in all but that one spell you mentioned, and its biggest use is chaining into a different spell. I just use the clawmark for casting and switch to a boosting seal depending by spell on the off-hand.
To summarise.
At below 70 faith, Godslayer
At 70 or more, Erdtree.
If your Arcane is higher than your faith, dragon
If your Strength is higher than faith, clawmark is best until roughly 50 faith
Clawmark does gain the 50% strength boost from 2 handing
Any specific incant boosting seals or weapons can be offhanded to give the bonus while casting with the stronger one, even if the seal is being 2-handed(clawmark).
Any weapon buffs (electric, bloodflame, etc) will only count your faith stat when calculating scaling, ignoring all other stats. If you're using those, only consider pure fth scaling seals.
Using flame art infusion with a higher faith investment and lower str will give you better incantation results overall without much loss in melee DPS. So unless you're a Strength build with minor investment for some bestial or buff incants, or you're married to an unga bunga stick with high Str requirements like me, consider switching to a more fth focused stat spread. Sacred infusion will get the exact same damage as flame art, but there are many bosses resistant to holy damage, so in practice flame art is better. Though be aware, any weapon which deals elemental damage, flame art included, cannot be buffed with elements. If you're using these consider standard, heavy or keen infusion over flame art. Avoid Quality infusion, it's terrible even on a quality build.
Of course, you can just check spell buff or AR yourself in the status screen if you're unsure. Just remember to 2-hand clawseal before checking.
Thanks for this.
How do you upgrade seals to cast more damage? I have a godslayer seal but I’ve seen gameplay where it’s (9+ )godslayer
@@thedontvinesdontend2967 The exact same way you upgrade any other weapons. IIRC they all upgrade with regular stones except for the erdtree seal.
Thank you!
Thanks for this essay! Lemme read it rq
dragon communion seal is nuts, i picked it up for my occult scythe build because i wanted swarm of flies, and i put frenzied burst in as a slot filler because of its insane range. i slept on it for half a week, only using it to snipe distant enemies in pve, until i threw it out trying to catch a host of fingers who kept bloodhound stepping away. after a bit of testing, i resolved to only use it against mage ganks because the stun from madness is so broken. that rule fell out a couple rivers of blood later, though.
frenzied burst w dragon communion is absolutely nuts in pvp as well, in peculiar if you use dragon communion(mostly ezeke's/rotten breath + other status moves such as swarm of flies)
coming from your armored core videos too this. crazy how much you improved your scripts and production quality and yet the information quality is still really high. glad i found your channel!
Glad you like them! I was basically learning along the way :P
Just watched this and the staff one, so much good information. Hope you get a lot of views on these videos!
I was expecting way way more seals, considering they should replace talisman and flames
I'm also surprised there's not a single hybrid/weapon catalyst in the entire game. Maybe they're saving it for DLC, but I think it would've been cool to have something like the flame scar sword or a catalyst that casts both spells and incantations.
@@NightmareBlade10 I'd love a Faith Catalyst that also takes the form of your Right Hand Weapon when you One-Hand so you can Powerstance and cast Faith Incantations, but the Weapon in your off-hand only scales from Faith, does Holy damage, and Your Ash of War becomes whatever Faith Spell you have equipped like how Shield Ashes of War overwrite right hand weapons.
@@KaiKrimson56 I've definitely thought of something like this before. For how diverse the game is you would have expected them to do something a bit more interesting in terms of catalysts.
@@KaiKrimson56 I assume the devs didn't know what direction to take catalyst weapons because of the ash of war system, so they are leaving it to DLC or scrapping it entirely.
Imagine making seals obsolete because you can change around the spellcasting ash on whatever weapon you like. It would need a lot of attention and fine tuning, it would walk the line of not stepping on the seals' toes and not being completely useless/unworthy of the ash slot.
The unique weapons boosting certain incantations, like the bestial dagger, fill the role without interacting with the problems it can occur. Besides, ashes of war is basically a pick-your-spell for weapons anyways. Although a unique somber weapon would be cool to see, it would just have problems with incant/damage scaling being married.
I have faith (pun intended) that they will come out with something similar for DLC. They just need to assess if it's a good fit in the new systems.
@@NightmareBlade10 just another way ds2 was the superior game. Blue flame blade for life!
The real strength of Golden Order seal at regular levels is allowing you to run int/fai, with access to the best spells of both pools. Run it with Prince of Death Staff and Sword of Night and Flame for versatility, while still maintaining comparable damage to pure Stat builds
Yeah, i have golden order in the right and prince of d staff in left. Got 10 memory slots 4 spells(dark moon takes 2slots)5 incant or 3 when i use useless but best looking ever scarlet aeonia. Love the frozen lightning spear, and if im not mistaken, it also counts as a frost spell so works with ranni's hat? Not sure on that but i still use it even if just for the abdula's moonblade and dark moon
These vids helped a lot with brainstorming my blood mage builds of sorts. I want to run pure Briars and Blood Oath spells, which means Faith/Arcane, so it's looking like Dragon Communion Seal for the bleed from Swarm of Flies, w/ Azur staff off-hand for the cast speed, and Albinauric main and Guilty off-hand for thorn spells.
Just...narrow it down to one seal, and one staff dude. Believe me, it's going to work out for the best. Azur staff for cast speed? I mean, that second and loss of focus in urgent situation to swap to a different staff to save like 0.06 seconds on a spell is really worth it? You want to streamline your builds, while retaining their functionality. If you're going to juggle staffs like this you might completely lose any advantages they provide.
@@Quicksilver_Cookie Not really gonna be PvPing, so it's not that big of a deal to me.
@@sfLionheart Really feels like using Radagon's Icon with ~20 dex for weapon requirements is enough cast speed for PvE, it's 50 out of 70 dex that counts for cast speed... and the staff costs you a hand rather than a pocket, even ignoring the FP consumption.
There's no reason to use both the staff and the talisman for PvE, so choosing the one with the least opportunity cost seems like the way to go.
@@Sljm8D I have 13 Dex since the only weapon I use is Reduvia, but I did wind up making the call to drop the staff.
ur channel is soooo underrated
Thank you
I still don't get why the erd tree seal doesn't boost erd tree incantations. There are a few offensive incantations which would really need the boost they are slow and could do more damage. But there IS a staff for two thorn sorceries. Only two they have their own catalyst. Maybe we get a better seal for offensive incantations in the dlc.
And even if they don't wanna give damage boost to erdtree incantations they could have use like less mana for casting them or a quickly cast time
@@gabrielepardini1126 yeah some spells really need damage and cast speed increases, even area of effect increase would help make spells more fun.
THANK YOU! I visited the 2 videos that google served up before yours, 1 of them left out 3 seals, the other was worse. Yours was perfect!
this video is a blessing. i hope you get more views bro
To say this is a quality video is definitely an understatement! I feel like I should be taking notes hahaha
I would love to see this list updated!
don’t think anything changed
@@burnersforhima lot has changed because certain incantations got buffed and some nerfed like the dragon ones
@@burnersforhim a lot has changed since last year tbh. We have seen many nerfs and buffs.
I currently main a Witchblade custom styled INT/DEX main with a little bit of investment in STR and VIG to balance some things out. But I plan to dabble in some kind of FTH/DEX Madness Maiden later just because I heard there's a Devil Kazuya and Devil Jin referenced eye Lazer beam. CYCLOPS too from x men I guess. So this guide will be helpful to me eventually after I reroll.
Oh so thats good to know. I was testing out the dragon com seal and seen it was pretty op with my arcane bleed especially to throw in a rot breath dragon.
Hello there! Great video! I just wanted to add something to the info pool. I have a character that has both 80 faith and 80 arcane; with said stat setup, the Dragon Communion seal outperforms the Erdtree Seal by a good margin. However, if I recall correctly, at 80 int and 80 faith (one of my previous settings on the same character), I think the incantation scaling for the Golden Order seal was even higher than Dragon Communion's at 80 faith and 80 arcane. Being practical, though, I found little utility in having both sorceries and incantations as opposed to pairing arcane with incantations (and a similar argument could be made for arcane and intelligence since pairing bleed and frost is extremely beneficial).
thanks for mentioning this, testing with the same spreadsheet chrightt was using, it even outpreforms communion at 40/40 int/faith opposed to 40/40 faith/arcane, albeit by just a few points, but that's really nice for the versatility gained even if you are losing out on the madness, bleed, and poison affliction increase.
@@EleanorDahlia yeah no problem; always glad to share info! Let me give you the scaling values I'm getting on my character now when soft-capped (80'd) in Faith, Int, Str, Dex, and Arcane:
Erdtree Seal: 353
Dragon Communion Seal: 387
Golden Order Seal: 390
Frenzied Flame Seal: 373
Godslayer Seal: 329
I do want to point out that, for some odd reason, bleed procs from incantations seem to trigger more often while using the Dragon Communion Seal, but I haven't actually measured it to prove/disprove the hypothesis lol.
thank you for commenting this, this is info I had hoped was in the video.
@@EleanorDahlia Yup. One of my PvE characters is a INT/FTH build with a mixed focus on Death Sorceries and Black Blade usage. I also found that at 50/50 stat investment that the Golden Order seal was simply better than the Dragon Communion one. Honestly I think it's a case where it's better to have two A scalings for the seals, rather than the S and B scaling when both are being counted. Additionally, it seems like even the type of spell used for comparison can make a huge difference in outcome, even if seal bonuses are a non-factor.
So Golden Order Seal is definitely the best deal out of all of them?
I really hope the fix frenzy flame seal to make it usable and make frenzy incantations scale better with faith
Aaaaaand they gutted frenzy in the patch completely
@@hotwasabi69 pretty much yeah T^T
Thank you so much for considering 50 Faith in your calcs. That is my current Stat for Faith since I am running a STR/Faith hybrid at RL 120.
I hope they fix the madness madness for pvp without ruining the dragon communion seal. I'm currently doing an arcane faith dragon build and having so much fun with it
Your videos are very factual. Insta subbed and sharing to others to help you get more exposure.
I appreciate that! Thanks a ton.
I would like to argue that Fingerseal is for low faith builds that wish to cast buffs and heals, since below 40 (For Erdtree) or 27 (for Godslayer) faith they don't have a better scaling seal to use. In the case of Healing and Buff incantations, it WILL provide the best bang for your buck until you become a faith hybrid instead of a faith dabbler.
Also, while it isn't the best at anything, it's decent at just about everything. Great to upgrade and use until you figure out what kind of incantations you wanna use. And it's super easy to get.
All the info in this video was great, my only complaint was the the mic quality
I'm still early in my first playthrough, using the clawmark seal together with mostly being a strength build to get those buffs going. I'm not really planning to dump a lot of levels into faith so its a good little thing to me rn.
Glad to see I was right with my madness pve build, using the erd tree as my main and frenzy seal in off hand at 80 faith
I really appreciate the amount of time and effort that goes into these videos. Thank you
Arcane/Faith was my first incant build so when I experimented with others later they all felt kinda underwhelming lol
Fun fact, godslayer seal doesnt boost noble presence, only the chest godskin tubby chest peice boosts it 😫 so no stacking damage for a slow move
very nice video! I tested them on my build. It's a bit counterintuitive that depending on your build a dragon spell may turn out weaker with the dragon seal than with another seal. Or a black flame incantation turns out to deal less damage even tough godslayer seal should support that.
A perfect video about seals, just perfect!
Great video! Informative and explained well.
Another nice thing about the formless seals is their lack of weight; letting you slot them in even if you're reaching the cap on your weight limit.
Hoping we get a Demon's Scar or Mace of the Insolent someday.
I would want DS2 blue flame back. Great sword + catalyst for support / utility sorceries.
I've used the Dragon Communion for at least four playthroughs, and only recently switched to Golden Order seal, and I've found that does more damage than what I had previously.
Keep this up and you'll grow rapidly!
I’ve been running clawmark seal because I’m a hybrid I main strength so I’m glad that it’s viable at least
Keep up the great work man.
You mentioned that Clawmark Seal only scales off faith with weapon buffs, but all of the multi-scaling seals; Dragon Communion, Frenzied Flame, and Golden Order also have this bug, and not just for buffs, but with healing spells too.
Noted. Am doing a research on mono-scaling spells right now because there doesn't seem to be a compilation.
@@Chrightt is there any spell/incantation that scales with arc?
Simple and correct. I love your videos
Nice video. Thank you for the in-depth explanation.
Clawmark Seal can be two handed for increased damage with off-handed cind dagger. Still not worth it at higher levels of faith.
Great video, good to know I can keep using the god slayer seal for my black flame guy.
I swear there are some seals that I never saw before. Thx for the vid
I played my second run with 2 dragon seal +9 and high arc and mid faith build. Dragons are so much fun. Now I changed it and focused on 80 faith and doing more lightning. Still had the most fun with dragons :-) First playthrough with Int and Magic. Was pretty boring in the end since it was always the same. With Faith you have so many more options and especially awesome animations
Placidusax ruin is also weird. On another channel someone told that it's not a dragon incarnation. But on the other hand it would be the only dragon incarnation without arcane requirement.
It's not a Dragon incant or a Dragon cult incant. Sadly it doesn't gain any boosts from either gravel or Dragon seals.
I'd say gravelstone seal is still best for 60 faith simply because dragon cult incantations >>> godslayer
Lightning spear is too good and all the ancient dragon spells are pretty good, you just need to time them right.
thats diferent for every player but still you can dual wield the highest inc seal then offhand the gravelstone or the gigant or the one you like the most to maximize damage however if you are mixing the incantations with your weapon it can be tedious to keep changing to the other seal so then pick the one you are most confortable with
@@badthunder115 I know it’s a while later but based on what you’re saying, for my build that i’ll be primarily using a spear and shield, with plans to only use the dragon cult incant, and since I only want to have one seal in my inventory, the gravel stone seal will be that best single one for this ?
@@man.728 the best would be to test, find an enemy and try with both seals, but i think if your faith isnt super high then the gravel stone would be best
also lighting armament isnt buffed by the gravel stone
Thank you! This was very helpful
You're welcome!
So the first seal available other than starting seals is actually the best seal for a big part of the playthrough. interesting
Since this only focuses on higher investment AND dealing direct damage with incantations I'm not sure what is best for me but I'll assume it's godslayer. I'm running 25 faith on melee build for flame grant me strength and golden vow but I also use electrify armament and blood flame blade. I'm sure the difference will be minor but I'd still like to invest in the best deal for the weapon buffs.
I think golden order seal is a little underrated for meta levels. It lets you put meta incants on a int/fth hybrid that leans int while still getting great incant scaling. At lvl 150 you can have 56 vig/40 mind/20 end/52 int/32 fth, enough to use azur's staff and supplement your max cast speed sorceries with incants like bestial sling, WoG, Honed Bolt, etc. at 316 incant scaling AND all those incants benefit from azur cast speed too. An odd build I know, but synergizes better than one might think, and it's just fun as hell to be the wizard casting WoG at max speed to get people the hell off you. Not to mention all the utility. You might think you lose the damage race against those who went full 80 int but then you put on barrier of gold and suddenly you outdamage them hard in PvP, and golden vow helps to make up for dps loss in PvE
The seals can be so confusing. Like, if I only want to cast the Dragon Cult spells like Lightning Spear... the seal that boost Dragon Cult incantations isn't always the best option. Personally, I think maybe most the seals should have about the same scaling so the passive boosts always make that seal better for using that specific type of incantation. I need to be a mathmetician to figure out at what stats it's actually better than the seals that don't boost those incantations
The instant Heal spells also only scales with faith
7:49 - If someone is trying to run a RL200 FTH/ARC build, and they want to make the best use of both of these stats to focus on fire related incantations, Dragon Cult Incantations and Dragon Communion Incantations, what is the best thing to do: leave both at 45, or increase ARC to 60 and leave FTH at 45?
Also, which seal should one go for: Dragon Communion Seal or Gravel Stone Seal; or use Gravel Stone Seal just for the Dragon Communion Incantations? Thank you for your help in advance! Love your videos and your attention to detail! I'm glad I found your channel!
You know, it's sort of peculiar that the best tools for int/fth builds are the golden order seal and the prince of death staff. The factions that created those items are diametrically opposed.
What is the best seal for bloodflame blade
Awesome video!
Yes I have found at lvl 713 golden order and prince of death.Tried to see what it did dual wielding as well.
So off hand Frenzied flame seal
And dragon communion casting
Is the best combo for max stats frenzy flame build
I've been running the finger seal for my entire playthrough out of laziness lol
Never wanted to look into which seal to invest in so went off the logic that the basic staff in ds3 was one of the best ones, so obviously the starting seal would be at least decent right?
Thanks for the guide, helped a lot
Thanks a lot. I waited until I got to fire giant to really bother looking up if the Clawmark seal was really the best seal could be using for Beast incantations. The jump from 289sb to 354sb was quite nice. Run would have probably been easier if I started with that. But now I feel like I broke RP.
you're off on the clawmark seal and equipping cinquededa
it is better to equip the seal in right hand and dual-hand it for the STR multiplier, with the dagger on the left hand
is there no graph for these numbers, quiet hard to follow the spreadsheets.
Great video bro
thanks!
Great video, saved me a lot of time. I was initially complaining in my head about your sound quality, but dismissed the thought after realising you sound exactly like Kim Kitsuragi from Disco Elysium, which is a great bonus
Coming back to this because despite the frenzied flame seal being weird and bad I genuinely haven't found something that gives me higher incantation buff than it does. I run an even 40 dex/faith so I can cast frenzy stuff extremely fast, I've upgraded several other seals to the max and they just aren't as good, I'm wondering if I'm missing something
This video is missing a very key point of information, Weapon buffs
I tested it awhile ago but dragon communion was the absolute worse at this aspect of the game
Seals with specific buffs to certain spells didn't get affect by said buff
Finnaly it seems the higher the base incant scaling= the better buff you receive
A video is coming out soon about this. I'm going to list all the mono-scaling spells you can take into account!
The healing and buffs incantations scale with your faith, at 60 faith godslayer i would full heal from lords heal, when i respected to dragon+arcane lords heal did a little over half my health even tho i had 50% more scaling. So technically if i only used faith as a stat but used the dragon seal to the point my scaling got to 250 i would get better heals, it is technically the sealsnfault but ultimately a game mechanic as to why non damage incants are underwelming with dragon seal
@@petercottantail7850 I didn't test it by switching my stats, so I cannot confirm this statement,Sounds reasonable though.
This makes a pure faith build more viable in a aspect where split scaling wouldn't, so as a balance mechanic i like it.
another point to make: frenzy flame seal has 0 weight where other seals weigh around 1.5. useful if all you want out of the incantations is non-scaling buffs like blessing's boon/flame grant me strength/golden vow
Erdtree and dragon Communion are 0 also
Chrightt … would you recommend Golden Order or Gravel for late end-game / NG+ - PVE Intelligence / Lightning throwing character ? My guy is mainly Int, at lvl-125 now, but “in the far future” NG+2, etc - I can see him wielding Prince of Death staff and having like 80-Int / 80-Faith. Under those conditions, is it still better to run a +25 Gravel Seal to get the most pop out of the Lightning Spears , or does Golden Order somehow beat out that 15% Lightning bonus due to its dual scale of Int / Faith, at very high stat levels ? 🤔
If you have 80 int/faith the golden order seal will outperform the gravel stone seal unless you're dual wielding gravel stone seals for double the passive buff (which performs slightly better).
@@Chrightt thanks much ! Love your deep analysis of the game 👍
Frenzy Flame ends up at 413 at all 99s, because 2 handing it affects str scale.
Clawmark is 367 at double 99 for the same reason.
better to hold 2 seals at that point though. You also lose a WA which just isn't worth it.
@@Chrightt Right, but the people who get the value out of this usually aren't casting. They toss out a spell to shoot something off a roof or whatever, then un 2 hand and go back to weapon.
I have done this a lot with clawmark on my STR/FAI build: shoot a couple lightning bolts and then swap to Golden Halberd and Greatshield for melee.
Thanks for your guidance! Keep up the good work :)
maybe if you use a better mic u can create a more pleasant audio exp and clearance in your voice.
I found most of the information very useful, but I hope you could improve the audio (english is not my first language so I miss certain words). Good job nontheless.
I will try my best! btw, I have subtitles uploaded in english if the audio isn't very clear.
I started as a strength build and am moving faith, so the Clawmark Seal is my main for now.
Thanks for this! Didn't know the finger seal was so bad, damn.
I'm planning to run a Faith build with a LOT of Godslayer incantations with a bit of Dragon (such as Dragon Claw), but I'm not sure whether to invest in Dragon Communion Seal or Godslayer seal more, especially when my main weapon Eleonora's Poleblade so I have to invest a bit in Arcane already to use it.
I'm just not sure which seal would be better for this and whether I should invest harder in Faith or Arcane with this build
AFAIK keeping seals in off-hand still grants the type bonus even if the incantation is casted with other seal in main hand (having clawmark in offhand and casting bestial incantations with a godslayer receives the bonus dmg)
Yes, but as I said in the video, you'd rather use Cinquedea in the right hand and cast with godslayer on the left hand. Essentially same as godslayer + beast mark except you get a quickstep and a melee attack. Mainhand/offhand for seals doesn't matter right/left hand. Mainhand only means the seal you cast with.
If you're a pure faith caster only using one type of damaging spells, it seems better to dual-wield two of the same Seal (e.g. Giant's Seal for pyromancies). [Not counting the Beast Claw or Dragon Communion] The Golden Order Seals uniquely can be dual-wielded and stacked with the Radiant Gold Mask - unless there's some hidden discount factor, that would result in (110%)^3 damage, in other words a 33.1% damage buff to Golden Order incantations...wouldn't that be enough to offset the worse faith scaling if you specced into the minimum Int (e.g. 23 or 31 for triple/Ragagon rings?)
Arcane build with dragon communion seal and albinauric staff and bleed access is easily the most versatile build in elden
Don't see anyone mentioning this so thought I'd say the Lusat's and Azur's staves actually effect incantations as well as sorceries even though it doesn't say so in the description, same with the radagon icon talisman
To clarify you cast with a seal and the staff in your offhand
Can’t you duel weild seals and get the buff such as boosts bestial Incantations but use the other seal to cast the spell for even extra damage
I'd love an indepth look at infusions versus incantations like the armaments. From my testing, running more faith than dex and pumping an electrify armament on with gravel stone using say the nagakiba outperforms a lightning infused nagakiba going pure dex.
This is coming soon, a video on mono-scaling spells and a look at buffs together.
I just wished there was another weapon other than Erdtree dagger that had the capability to scale to both Faith and Arcane for the Dragon Communion Seal. It's actually funny even when I ran the calculations even doe Rejuvina has no faith scaling it beats out the Erdtree by a large amount.
Does the dragon communion seal increase the bleed from bloodboon and bloodflame talons? I tried testing this on the albinaurics at the palace ledge approach site of grace, as well as the giant at the secluded cell, but a definitive conclusion was difficult to reach by eye alone, no matter how much I shifted stats around.
Swarm of flies bleed build up definitely does scale with the arcane seal. But for bloodflame talons and bloodboon, I just cannot figure that out. Please let me know if you can test this somehow or know the answer
Hello, I believe it does. I suggest trying to do it with less than 25 arcane and then trying it again with 60 arcane. I think you should be able see the difference more clearly.
I find the Dragon Communion Seal to be an odd choice. It scales mostly with arcane, but the arcane scaling only affects damage. This means the seal is great for damage, notably dragon incantations, but it is relatively weak for buffs and heals. However, since you have an arcane build, you have no shortage of damage from weapon choices. This means the thing your seal is good for is probably the thing you need it for the least. Obviously, it is a great option if you do not want to increase faith, but if you are looking to incantations for something other than damage, then you really do have to raise faith and use a different seal because all that arcane scaling does not apply outside of damage.
thank you! subbed
Well, that explains why my encantations are more damaging than my spells, been using the dragon comunion seal and upgrading arcane for the bleed build i did.
Was looking info on the best seals but i gess i will stik with the dragón seal then.
I’m running 80 strength and 80 faith with clawmark, does anyone know if this a mistake?
Golden Order Triple rings of light is actually really good for pvp but that's kinda the only viable INT/FTH spell. You can aim at the ground while someone tries to rush you and hit them 2-3 times with it for around 900 damage with a optimized build and since it lingers it's hard to avoid.
This was made before the golden order spell buffs in 1.04
When building for a specific incantation type, for example Dragon cult, is it better to use 2 Gravelstones to double up the bonus, or is it better to use the godslayer/Erdtree seal in your main hand with a Gravelstone in your offhand?
I know it's unrealistic to expect a whole new video (and unnecessary) but since the DC seal nerf in 1.04, would you mind making a pinned comment comparing dragon communion spell damage of a FAI/ARC build dual-wielding DC seals VS a pure FAI build mainhanding erdtree seal and off-handing DC seal?
By "pure FAI" in this case I mean "just enough points in ARC to cast the spells, but not attempt to scale them"
If you have 60 strength and 60 faith the max clawmark seal has higher spell scaling than the erdtree seal
Saw this just when I was going to crunch the numbers myself! Kinda bummed out that the dragon communion seal is so strong as arcane builds feel super cheese in PVP right now. Offhanding azurs, frenzied flame, and giants catalysts with mainhand erdtree might be a good alternative to play optimally across the incantation spread with pure faith.
Yeah, I think if arcane is going to double dip into making status apply faster too the seal should not be this strong. Honestly, status in general is a bit too easy to apply/make easier to apply quicker. I would like to see base resistances slightly buffed across the board for armor or just the character itself.
@@Chrightt I think putting bleeds damage and build up more in line with poison would be a good way to go. Poison isn't that bad after all.
If I'm only using lighting incantations with 80faith should I use erdtree seal or gravel stone seal