Elden Ring - Most Op Faith Scythe Build You Can Make Early. Black Flame Reaper Build
Intro
If you ever wanted to play as a Reaper of Death, wielding a massive scythe and using black flames to torment your enemies, then I have just the build for you. In today's album ring article, we're going to take a look at a build that starts strong and becomes even stronger as you progress and level up in the game.
I've been using it up to level 70 so far, and it has not failed me once. It has a lot going for it. It has huge melee and spell damage and long range, and there are few situations where this build isn't good at, so let's begin now.
Class choices
The recommended starting class is the Confessor, because it already starts with faith and with an item you can get very early in the game.
You literally don't need to invest any further points in strength and dexterity until much later, which gives you the opportunity to invest more points in faith and get some very powerful early-on weapons for the build. It's also a decent starting class with a decent gear set, a good shield, and a sword, so it's much easier to build up early on compared to.
Best early weapons choices
To say the profit now, once in the game, there are a few things you can immediately start looking into that require no story progression. No fighting except dodging some enemies that can make you immediately OP. The first item you're going to be using is the winged scythe. This is the bread and butter of this build, and you're going to be using L2, which is its special skill attack called "Angel's Wings," that scales up with your faith and deals massive damage and stagger.
Now to find this weapon, you simply have to head over South in the Weeping Peninsula, over here at this location called the Tombs of Ruins. Ignore the enemies and try to open the door. Even if you die, you can unlock a nearby side of Grace and then just come back and open the chest to get the Scythe right away.
The second item, even more important, is going to be the radagon's source heel. This is a legendary talisman that you get from the fourth ferret right here in Caledon. Simply go onto the roof, drop into the second gap right here into the next floor, and you will make your way using this path to descend near the corpse that holds the legendary item.
Now this is going to be extremely important because it already raises two of the stats needed to wield the side from strength and dexterity, so between the 12 that the Confessor already starts with and the five you accumulate from the Talisman, you already get one point above the 16 cap needed to wield the side from the very start.
There is no point in investing in either strength or dexterity, which leaves you a lot of room to just go ahead and focus on faith. The same item also gives you a massive boost to vigor, endurance, and equip load, so it's literally the best item you can get and also use the Scythe right away. From this point on, there are a couple more items that it will definitely make use of.
One of them is the gold Slayer seal, and the other one is the Black Flames incantations. Both are found in the same location. For these two, you're going to head over to the Stormville castle, specifically starting with the left side chamber. You can make your way through the courtyard with all of the enemies that you will want to ignore and just keep it to the right until you make it to this underground seller.
The first one will give you the Godslayer seal, which scales up your God Slayer incantations. Yes, this includes black flames, which is perfect because we're going to be using those as well. The second chest will give you the godskin prayer book, and what you will need to do with this is to bring it to the Church of Vows.
Right here in East Lyrina to the Turtle Pope. Yes. I am calling it that to unlock the Black Flames and, of course, the Black Flame Blading Contagions that you will both want to purchase, Now here is how the gameplay works with this build.
Build fighting guide
Your main attack form will be using the winged side in the early stages of the game specifically. That L2 special ability that both deals massive damage and also has a broad range Your attacks consist of a rather fast charging jumping cross slash immediately followed by a downward thrust after a split second of floating up in the air.
It goes without saying that this moveset is absolutely devastating against any type of enemy, both on the primary hit and especially on the final blow. Skeletons, in particular, and other unholy creatures are even more weak against Faith scaling, receiving increased damage compared to other foes, which makes them arguably one of the most annoying enemies in the early stages of the game.
The range of the weapon is also obviously very high, which is also further helped by the fact that the angel wings ability makes your character move slightly in the direction you're aiming towards, meaning that it's also kind of like a gap closer. Most importantly, though, this is an amazing AOE attack, giving you a massive reach and even a cross slash that can affect multiple enemies in a large semi-circle in front of your character.
The Scythe attack also provides a massive stagger buildup against any enemy, including bosses, and with a 55 blood loss buildup on it, it means you're dealing two sources of damage, with, of course, the blood loss dealing and increased damage, which is very helpful early on in the game. The move does consume about 17 FPS, so investing a bit of points into this mind won't hurt this build either now in a range situation or when you can't reach an enemy because there's a gap or an obstacle or when you just want to keep your distance.
This is when you're going to be using the previously unlocked Black Flames ability. This is a fast-casting, decent-damage attack that can also be charged and has a damage over time component where it can set enemies on fire. The damage over time seems to be percentage based, scaling off enemies' HP, so it's one of the best abilities you can get both early and mid game with an initial damage of just 250.
This can quickly turn into almost 400 after waiting a couple more seconds for the following damage over time, which is definitely very useful now. There were two straight change behaviors that I noticed, and I'm not sure if this manifests for anybody else, but the fast version of this incantation deals the same amount of damage as the charged version, so it's better to just use the fast cast of it rather than wait for the charge since it deals the same amount of damage and you can spam it.
The flame grants me strength. The incantation also seems to buff its damage since, well, the black flame on it is technically still considered fire damage by the game, so it's going to increase that damage by quite a significant margin. By the way, you can get the flame grant me strength from Fort Gale right here in Caledon, in the area of the castle between two enemies, so it's rather easy to get it now.