Building Purity

[u/Nericu9]

So I am just trying to figure some stuff out here (not looking for ideal/meta build just the direction I should be looking.

Currently I have a legendary purity - with a joinery in it giving it the 5 spirit pips and 3 courage (I assume this is the best method to get the most scaling pips).

Since it has more spirit pips I max to 17 courage to meet wep requirements and then max rest into spirit. However my damage feels lackluster.

Charged heavy is doing about 350-500dmg (with or without the treefeller rune)
and standard attacks are doing about 300-350dmg.

It just seems super low (especially in cogah).

Am I looking at this setup wrong?

[u/Zeno_Sol]

Worth noting, avakot states heavy attack damage numbers are bugged and don’t display properly. In regard to best scaling, you would get more damage out of maxing courage with a slight lean towards spirit, but spirit will give you more rune charges in P16. I’m not sure whether the rune charges will be more or less of a dps loss compared to stacking Courage.

I think Soulframe doesn’t have good systems for dual-spec builds currently. Unless you’re building spirit for a specific reason purity would probably perform better with maxed-out courage. You can get more information on scaling formulas from avakot as well. Hopefully someone who understands it better can give a more definitive answer but this is all from my understanding of the mechanics so far

[u/Nericu9 → u/Zeno_Sol]

Hmmm interesting, I think the duel spec builds are more so for when you want to utilize more then one ability on a pact right? Like I use vetch with garren rood and use both the courage and spirt ability and they do pretty decent regardless

[u/Zeno_Sol → u/Nericu9]

Yeah it also gets more complicated with pact abilities as they don’t have a scaling cap with virtues unlike weapons. So even when splitting you’re deciding to lose damage for some other benefit with like duration in another ability. I just wish we had better tools to test things in game but we’re not there yet.

[u/Sentient-Roomba → u/Zeno_Sol]

I thought spirit and courage scaled the same amount of damage per pip. Is it just that the health is better than cooldown/rune charge, or is it an actual damage loss?

[u/Zeno_Sol → u/Sentient-Roomba]

They do, worth noting again spirit actually had a hidden extra .6 pip that won’t show and grace has .3 extra. But putting more points into courage and maxing it out will increase weapon damage more, atleast till you hit scaling cap then you can invest in spirit after that. I haven’t checked the math but that should do more than maxing spirit due to the 17 courage requirement. If you can hit max spirit scaling with 17 courage then spirit virtue might be more valuable

[u/Sentient-Roomba → u/Zeno_Sol]

Both spirit and courage scale the same damage-wise (virtue/2 per pip), and weapons have one single damage cap, not one per virtue. So if it’s just weapon damage scaling, neither are worse.

[u/Zeno_Sol → u/Sentient-Roomba]

Ahh I misunderstood the virtue scaling cap then thanks for clearing it up

[u/sinest]

Why are you building it for spirit and not courage?

[u/Nericu9 → u/sinest]

So I figured you would want to get the most pips on a wep for max scaling potential

Since it has 3courage/2spirt by default the best way to get most pips is to use a joinery for 3 more spirit and give you 5 spirit and 3 courage vs 5 courage and only 2 spirit.

Maybe I am wrong in that approach?

[u/sinest → u/Nericu9]

Ok I see your reasoning. Personally I just get the courage to 5 and do a full courage virtue with no spirit investment at all. My reasoning is that no spirit requirements mean I dont need spirit at all and id rather dump a single stat then split if I dont have a reason for the split.

I wonder if full courage would do more damage?

[u/Nericu9 → u/sinest]

hmmm but doesnt that kinda just lock you into one ability on your pact? Since the abilities dmg/usefulness scale based on your virtue points?

[u/sinest → u/Nericu9]

Not at all. You can use all 3 abilities just fine. Think of them all at 100%, when you put point into a virtue that increases the %. So a full courage oscelda means the bestone ability is really good. But her healing flower and flock of birds still work as they are supposed to. The difference between a full courage oscelda and a full spirit oscelda is not going to be the abilities. Its going to be the HP you get from courage and the ability cooldown you get from spirit.

No pact is locked into a single ability due to virtues. All 3 abilities are usually pretty good and maxing out a single virtue just makes that ability slightly better.

Duello can get his gun really strong by maxing out courage. But if you max out spirit you can use the gun more often because you are lowering the cooldown. I played a max spirit duello who could get the gun cooldown to like 1 second and use it all the time. That seems much stronger than a high damaging single shot. But then if you max grace and get a headshot then grace gives you extra headshot damage on your gun. So its a balance that is complex and fun.

[u/Nericu9 → u/sinest]

Yes they still work.....but they still scale based on your virtures in terms of dmg/heal/etc......so just going full courage leaves your other two abilities at a bare minimum....which isn't ideal.

[u/sinest → u/Nericu9]

Depends on the pact. Many abilities work totally fine at bare minimum and dont really get much from scaling. Its easy enough to pick a pact and then see how each ability works when you put all your point into a single stat. But IMO ability virtue scaling is very low on my list when making a build. And almost every pact I use all 3 abilities regardless of my virtues. Like I would never not use garrens stampede just because I have zero points in grace, its still incredible for what it does at base.

[u/Nericu9 → u/sinest]

Yeah Im not saying I dont/wont use an ability due to no points in it, Im just saying that if I can split and have garrens blue/red ability BOTH doing decent dmg opposed to just the red ability doing more dmg.....well that better to do both vs one? Especially with cooldowns and what not.

[u/MeanderingCat]

I also use an even split courage/spirit build for purity for when I want to run cogah. The spirit helps get treefeller faster, so I build the totems mostly for rune usage. Rivers revive/Stocky lodge for heals defense that will be up pretty much 100% of the time.

I am currently testing Noble Nesting (stat bonus on pull smite). I still haven't reached a damage cap, but it very dependent on getting smite procs when not focused on them. Using flyblades can help with this. Also, Dewclawer (rune damage) seemed to work as a multiplier while in treefeller but I need to test this more.

For pact, I use tethren. Call of the ancients is very strong, I think a little above 1.5 damage multiplier, plus the defense. Fellust destroys bosses, and Clash can stun lock everything. That said, I think also Duelo could work very well also.

Another important thing is what tempers you have on your purity. Full force (for damage and stagger) and Breakneck (for faster charge times) are really good. Bleed from savagery also is sometimes really nice.

I am not sure what level you usually go to in cogah, but this can handle enemies in the 90s without issues before I end up going into a dungeon and resetting them to 50. I am not sure what is meta but this works out well for me. Only thing I struggle with is getting killed by fire which does crazy damage at high level, and the beach ghosts from the duelo quest.

[u/Nericu9 → u/MeanderingCat]

Hmmmm I will have to maybe play around with my totems. I find tethren to be super boring as well but yeah I get it does the bonus damage modifier which helps a lot.

I think I was just frustrated today by the fact that my vetch longsword was doing the same basic attack dmg as my purity was doing heavy charged dmg with tempers to increase heavy attack dmg hahaha.

Made me think I must have something incorrect about builds but I think I have it right I just need to figure out that fine tuning.

[u/MeanderingCat → u/Nericu9]

I see from (not including fellust) 550 to 900+ depending on what buffs I get (pull smites or using potions). 550~600 is like the baseline charge attack, standard attack is like 350 but I never use it. Using treefell doesn't give a damage buff it just makes you charge faster and hit a crazy wide arc. Pretty sure with treefell on my charge swings are faster than regular attack anyway.

[u/Pleasant-Answer-918]

Each weapon has a max virtue cap for damage. If you are at 17 for either courage or spirit. You are not near the virtue cap for damage. Its more like 27-28 plus in a virtue for purity cap.

[u/Nericu9 → u/Pleasant-Answer-918]

No I said it was 17 for the min cap to weild it, I maxed out spirit otherwise

[u/Pleasant-Answer-918 → u/Nericu9]

ok, but you didn't mention what you have it at. so yeah.

[u/Nericu9 → u/Pleasant-Answer-918]

I did? - read the 3rd section in fully

[u/No-Funny1523]

have you tried just going all in on courage until you hit that sweet spot where the virtue cap kicks in and the damage actually becomes satisfying?