The problem is they're mostly faith based and faith is the least popular build of any Souls game.
I get that it's not the point, but they're most definitely not "mostly faith based".
Of all the aura buffs I just listed, the only ones with a faith requirement are the Golden Vow spell, the Golden Halberd and the Golden Epitaph sword. And of these three, two have an entirely negligible requirement (14 Faith for the Golden Epitaph, 12 for the Golden Halberd), which means that the only "faith based" aura buff is the Golden Vow spell.
Faith has a lot of body buffs, but there's an equal amount with absolutely no requirement. The best ones are VERY hard to miss (Boiled Prawn from our good friend Big Boggart, Armorer's Cookbook 3 from one of the very first merchants in Limgrave).
For weapon buffs, once again, Faith is a non-issue.
Saying that buffs are "mostly faith based" and that's a problem that prevents your standard player from using them is just plain false. Your standard player doesn't use buffs either because he's not willing to understand how they work or because he doesn't need them since summoning makes everything easy enough.
Most people aren't using the buff weapons for example. And outside of a small niche they're not switching standard into gold vow into flame grant me strength.
Yeah, I 100% agree. The incredibly funny over-buffing routine is something that's only relevant for a very selected fringe of passionate players willing to invest a lot of time into the game.
Elden ring is especially bad for starting a faith class and doing much of anything early on. And my experience with faith in my recent play through was the best thing you had was black flame spells. Unless a boss was immune to fire there was never a reason to use any of the fancy stuff (most of it sucked any way).
Boy oh boy, if this is your take on faith builds we've had VERY different experiences. My last playthrough I only used incantations and I can't really express how wrong I think you are. I can't say I've experienced an easier run. Enemies (even bosses) basically can't attack you while you delete them from afar.
Catch Flame can carry you through the early game (I mean, it can actually carry you through the entirety of the game, but that's another story) and it's incredibly easy to quickly optimize.
Honed Bolt and Lightning Strike are good enough tools to start, but as soon as you pick up Lightning Spear in Liurnia you're set for the rest of the game. There are better spells for specific enemies and situations, but
Lightning Spear is an easy win button against 95% of the content if you build around it. I haven't filmed anything, but there isn't a single boss that this thing can't easily delete in a couple of casts.
Lansseax's Glaive,
Fortissax's Lightning Spear and
Frozen Lightning Spear are all incredibly good at taking care of big groups of enemies.
Ancient Dragons' Lightning Strike and
Pest Threads deal thousands and thousands of damage to big enemies.
Aspect of the Crucible: Tail and
Aspects of the Crucible: Horns can perma-stunlock every character-sized enemy.
Giantsflame Take Thee,
Flame, Fall Upon Them and
Burn, O Flame! are perfect alternatives against anything resistant to electricity. They're all endgame spells, but Catch Flame is always there.
Darkness isn't easy to use, but it's such a funny weird thing. If you time it correctly, you can basically "stun" almost every dangerous enemy for long enough to charge a big finisher with a long casting time. It's definitely the easiest way to deal with omens and revenant (if you don't want to cheese them with healing spells).
These are the spells I used, but I'm sure there are other good ones. I'm sure Frenzied Burst and The Flame of Frenzy are good, but I can't vouch for them as I haven't used them much.
tl;dr: incantations are broken and they trivialize the entire game. From the very beginning to the last boss (Catch Flame deletes Radagon, Pest Threads kills the Elden Beast so hard it dies IRL).
This is part of the difficulty selection. This is also the exact build Lyric is using and why we laugh at him for thinking this is a 'normal' build. He's using the most broken meta weapon in the game and stacking buffs on top of it then going "isn't this game easy!!! Everyone else must suck!" and can't see he's literally playing goldfish difficulty, except it's goldfish plus buffs so it's like hyper golfish easy mode.
I have seen a lot of people play Elden Ring (both the base game and the DLC) and, even if I wouldn't go as far as saying that these games are easy, people are definitely making it harder than it needs to be by not using basic tools (shields, ashes of war, summons) the game expects you to use.